What Businesses Need to Know About Direct Marketing

A recent article, “What Businesses Need to Know About Direct Marketing,” by Ira Kalb, talks about how the marketing industry shifted towards the internet and social media in 1995.

To be successful, marketers should learn how these online tools are forms of direct marketing. Marketers should also know the basic concepts of direct marketing. Direct marketing enables buyers and sellers to do business without meeting face-to-face or touching merchandise.

Common Direct Marketing Methods

Direct Mail

An example of direct marketing is direct mail which first occurred in 1732 when Benjamin Franklin used Direct Mail to market Poor Richard’s Almanac throughout the American colonies. Direct mail continued to flourish with the creation of the Montgomery Ward catalog in 1872 and the Sears catalog in 1888. These catalogs were popular since a large portion of the American population lived outside of cities and towns that had stores with adequate product choices.

Telemarketing

Marketers began to use Telemarketing methods in the late 1970’s. Telemarketing is based on two principles: inbound marketing and outbound marketing.

1. Inbound: toll-free numbers are provided for customers to call businesses as needed.


2. Outbound: telemarketers call prospects for business development opportunities. Companies use outbound telemarketing to answer questions, provide customer service, facilitate the ordering of desired products and cross-selling.

Direct Response Advertising

Direct response advertising is advertising with an objective of getting the prospect to order the product directly from the ad. Examples of direct response advertising include TV ads that display a toll-free phone number to order, and an email that provides a link to order the product from a website.

Online Marketing

The method that has caused the most rapid growth of direct marketing is Internet marketing. Nothing is more convenient and economical than the Internet for searching and purchasing merchandise.

Knowing how to use the Internet and its mobile “offspring” in conjunction with direct mail, telemarketing, and direct response advertising can create a synergistic force for marketing products most efficiently and effectively.

Marketers need to become well versed with popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. They also need to learn how to integrate them with other direct marketing methods to increase the marketing power.

What Businesses Need to Know About Direct Marketing