You often hear that “Mail is Dead” or “Email is dead.” And for this reason alone, a lot of people just kind of lost interest to even look into direct marketing.
But is it? Is Direct Marketing really dead?
Short answer: IT IS NOT.
On average, American households receive about 454 pieces of marketing mail per year. Average consumers also see 5000 or more pieces of advertising each day.
YES, direct marketing is very much alive and it can tremendously help with increasing your brand awareness.
In this article, we will be talking about direct marketing strategies, how it continues to perform after all these years, why it will remain effective and how direct marketing impacts your brand awareness.
- What is Direct Marketing?
- Forms of Direct Marketing
- Why is Direct Marketing Effective?
- The Future of Direct Marketing
- What is Brand Awareness?
- Brand Awareness and Business Growth
- How Direct Marketing Impacts Brand Awareness
- Types of Direct Marketing and How It Creates Brand Awareness
- Featured Video Training
Direct Marketing is when a business or company presents information about their products, services or about the company itself, to their targeted audience.
Direct marketing can be in the form of an email, SMS, Instagram direct messages, mailing postcards, telemarketing and more.
Sure, TV ads might present your products and services in front of millions of people. But it’s still not as direct as sending promotions to people who are actually qualified to become your customer.
For example, subscribers of golf digest can be targeted for an ad about the upcoming PGA Championship tournament or a new golf resort.
Which is great but that doesn’t mean they can afford to go or live close enough to the event to be likely to attend.
Imagine if you also layered demographic and firmographic data on top of those people. (What demographics are to people, firmographics are to organizations.)
Then you can truly directly target potential customers and reduce the unqualified eyes on your ads.
This allows you to create direct marketing campaigns that find your perfect customer wherever they may go online and offline.
They will see your brand in their mailbox, on their Instagram Feed, when they check their email or when they shop online.
Interests:
Golf
Traveling
Bubba Watsons
Data:
Located in California
Income: $100,000+
Home Value: $700,000+
To learn this Data Drive Direct Marketing Strategy check out our free marketing course at Giant Partners, Genius Digital Marketing.
Here are some common types of direct marketing to get you started:
A good direct marketing campaign is measured by how engaged your prospects are. Whatever your campaign may be, formulating your KPIs to measure your conversion rate is very important as this is the most accurate way to know just how well your promotion is doing.
That being said, direct marketing is a marketing technique that has been very effective due to these reasons:
Personalised Promotions
With direct marketing, you’d be able to create segments and target parts of your list at a time. This enables you to make the message more personal, making the recipient feel it is meant just for them.
Improve Customer Loyalty
Because of the personalised contents, direct marketing helps you build a stronger connection with your customer.
Sending a personalized offer that’s related to their favorite color, their hobbies, or even their degree, is a great way to utilize the information you have for each of your customers.
I know this might seem like extra effort…
But personalized customer experience yields higher conversion rate and will drive people down your sales funnel.
Your customers will feel valued, and you will get more sales. It’s a win-win situation!
More Cost-effective
And because you have narrowed down your audience, you will be able to optimize your marketing budget. You will not have to spend a crazy amount compared to when you are doing a mass marketing campaign like paying for tv ads airtime or leasing a billboard space.
Based on data provided by Adage, a 30-second spot broadcast nationally averages around $115,000 in 2019…Yikes!
And the worst part is, you can’t directly target your perfect customer.
Having a more refined list of your targeted audience will mean that your ROI will also improve.
After all, you are only reaching out to people who are guaranteed to show interest in your offer. Less marketing budget, more sales.
What else can you ask for?!
Retarget Lapsed Customer
Direct marketing is not only effective in keeping your current customers engaged, it is also a good way to get in touch with old customers. Rekindle your relationship with old customers and create new sales opportunities.
Test Products and Sales Performance
Since direct marketing is easily measurable, it is the best way to test ideas, upcoming products or even your current products.
It is easier to get feedback and suggestions from people who are already engaged with your brand to begin with.
Because if your new marketing idea doesn’t work with them, it most likely won’t work for someone who has never heard of you.
These people are your safest experiment group to help you improve your products, services and your company in general.
Direct marketing’s future is brighter than ever!
In a survey by ANA/DMA, response rate just keeps increasing each year.
In 2018, the average response rate for direct mailing amounted to 4.9% for prospect lists and over 9% for house lists. It almost doubled compared to previous year’s survey results of 2.9% and 5.1% respectively.
There is no better way to predict Direct Marketing’s future than to look at its history. Numbers don’t lie, so here are some statistics worth noting:
Direct Marketing Stats that proves it is here to stay for good:
59% of Americans enjoy getting mail from brands about new products. It makes them feel more appreciated by the brand.
42.2% of direct mail recipients either read or scan through the mails they get.
60% of direct mail recipients visit the website of the company that mailed them catalogs.
Catalog recipients purchased 28% more items and spent 28% more money on the business that sends catalog via postal service.
Segmented emails have a 100.95% higher click-through rate than its non-segmented counterpart.
Only 44% of people can recall a brand immediately after seeing a random digital ad compared to 75% of people who receive direct marketing. Direct Marketing is a lot more effective for building brand awareness.
The response rate for direct mail is up to 9 times higher than that of email.
Emails
Postcards
Brochures
Newsletter
Circulars
Fliers
SMS
Phone Calls
Coupons
Brand awareness is about the level of recognizability of your company. It is not only how prospective customers can recognize a brand image or logo, but if they can associate your brand with one of your product or service.
Your brand awareness is highly dependent on your marketing efforts. Of course, the more your potential customer is aware of your brand, the bigger your chance to have new sales lead.
Brand awareness is crucial to your business growth. Without having brand presence, whatever you are selling is more than likely to fail.
To gain your voice in your industry, you have to make sure that you are not just blending into the crowd. Bring something to the table that has never been brought before.
This sure is not as easy as it sounds, but you should know your company’s value and what sets it apart — I am sure you can come up with at least 2 things on top of your head.
Now, scream on top of your lungs. Let everyone know how great your products and/or services are. Be a thought leader in your industry.
The total amount of your share of voice will drive growth to your total marketing share.
Share of voice is very important. It gauges the influence your brand has in your industry compared to your competitors.
Take pride with what your business has to offer, and firmly believe in it. And before you know it, consumers will believe in it, too.
As mentioned before, 75% of people who receive targeted marketing campaigns were able to recall the brand as opposed to 44% of people who saw random ads.
Generally, direct marketing associates is good for brand awareness because you are already targeting audiences that have shown interest in your brand itself or your brand’s industry.
Some consumers might feel bothered by direct marketing, but if it is segmented correctly and presented creatively in your campaigns — it might just well be the most effective strategy for building relationships with your current customer, and introducing your brand to potential customers.
Direct Mail Marketing
This is HUGE. Over the years, we’ve seen how marketing has been revolutionized. And as more and more digital marketing agencies show up, the more we hear the words “mail is dead.”
However, this is not true at all. With the revolution that had happened, direct mail marketing just conformed and transformed into something more powerful.
Now, we have postcards with QR codes and catalogs with short links.
Receiving a tangible form of marketing still creates that stronger connection with consumers, just like how it was 10 or 30 years ago.
With over 200 million consumer data and 20 million business information in our database, Listgiant and our data specialists can help you get a targeted direct mailing list.
Email Marketing
Email marketing can be a great way to connect with your customers and promote your business. However, it’s important to do it right. An effective email marketing guide that will help you get started:
Email marketing is a form of marketing wherein a company sends a promotion message through their existing email lists. These people are the ones that actually showed interest in your brand already, all you have to do is give them a little push.
Email marketing lists are usually collected by having the consumers themselves, opt-in or subscribe to your list through landing pages on your website, social media outlets, shopping websites and the like.
(If you are looking to expand your email list, LISTGIANT can provide a refined list of prospects based on your target demographics. Click Here to learn more!)
This form of marketing has been proven to be very cost effective. With today’s technology, from opening an email, to clicking on links and making a purchase — those are all trackable so email marketing is a lot easier to measure than traditional mail.
SMS Marketing
With a staggering 82.1% open rate, SMS is a very good option for sending time-sensitive updates.
Examples are appointment reminders, expiring discount codes, “last chance” reminders for sales, and other contents that you want your customers to get directly through their mobile phones.
If you want to get a Do Not Call (DNC) fully compliant list, reachout to LISTGIANT and we will help you reach your perfect audience today!
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is rampant today. It is those sponsored ads that are strategically placed between your friends’ posts on facebook. It is those ads that you have to skip before getting to watch a video.
Just how effective is social media digital marketing? Well, Facebook earned 16.6 billion in ad revenue alone for the second quarter of 2019. That’s how much marketers are investing on social media ads. I mean, that should mean something, right?
Messenger Marketing
Messenger marketing is the hot new channel that has some amazing engagement rates. This is a relatively new channel which allows you to automate your conversation with your prospects.
(See Giant Partner’s comprehensive guide for messenger chatbot here.)
what you can do with messenger bot:
Automate follow up and promotional messages
Handle a multitude of customer service requests without lifting a finger
Schedule appointments automatically
Communicate the latest news or updates coming from your brand
Messenger Stats You Need to know:
80% Open Rate
40% Click-through Rate
53% of people are more likely to buy when they can message directly
1.2 billion people use Facebook messenger every month.
Messaging apps are growing faster than social networks. So act fast before they become too crowded.
Postcards, Fliers and Brochures
These are printed versions of your business ads. You should always put a clear call to action on these fliers and brochures as a way to track your conversions and sales.
A simple “Get 15% off on your next purchase. JUST PRESENT THIS FLIER AT THE CASHIER” can track how many people actually responded to your campaign.
Generally, fliers are effective if your target market are the people living in the area around your business (this is especially true for local businesses with small to no internet presence.)
You can also give out fliers and brochures to people who attend conferences, parties and other social and business gatherings that’s related to your niche. Best way to reach out to these people who haven’t heard about your brand!
Conclusion
In the end, it all boils down to your custom audience data list. It is very crucial to have a refined list that targets your perfect customer and bring your brand name in front of these people who will be interested. This will indicate if your campaign will make it or break it.
GIANT PARTNERS helps businesses like yours to kickstart campaigns and provide assistance in every step of the way to success — from custom audience modeling, buyer personal modeling and content creation, to multi-channel targeting and campaign optimization.
