Direct Marketing News

Marketing gives a company visibility within a target market; it is how it attracts new customers and maximizes the lifetime value of existing ones. The ability to market a product or service is vital to a company’s ongoing success-this is not a revelation. The struggle amongst marketing executives is never whether or not to advertise, but which marketing medium to make use of. With all the options that exist for marketing, consumers prefer personalized direct mail over other marketing options.

There are several advantages to using direct mail as your medium of choice to market your business. Direct mail is a cost effective way to target a specific market segment, while personalized direct mail adds to that medium an attention grabbing call to action.

Direct Mail and Segmenting a Market

Unlike many other forms of advertising, direct mail is sent to a specific list of potential and existing customers most likely to buy your product or service. Not all of the listeners of a radio ad fit into your target market. This type of advertising is often called “spray and pray”. The thought is to “blanket” the airwaves with your ad, hoping to hit interested parties with a quantity, not quality campaign. This is not always cost effective and cannot be targeted like direct mail.

Personalized Direct Mail Increases Response Rates

Direct mail is also flexible as its format is always tangible allowing for a variation of hands-on advertising that can really grab attention and stay in a potential buyer’s memory. From postcards or flyers to pamphlets or photos, this personalized marketing can be fresh and witty with the exact tone of your company or current ad campaign, making direct mail incredibly effective in getting your message out. The term of memory on the ad can be longer than many other mediums as well. If a potential client sees an opportunity through your ad, they can throw it up on the fridge or on a desk to review later, making it an “in the back of the mind” option for a future purchase.

Personalized Direct Mail Results Realized

Test your market with a small mailing first before launching a full campaign through direct marketing and then measure your responses to the test with your customer’s replies to the call-to-action portion of your direct mail. The ability to test your market is one unique to direct mail advertising. You don’t have to fully commit to a high-priced ad campaign before knowing the possibilities of its success, like has to be done with radio or TV ads, allowing you to maximize the market response as well as keeping your dollars in your pocket until you find the best market for the best ROI, or rate of investment.

Easily Estimate the Profitability

Measuring your ROI for your direct mail campaign allows you to estimate the profitability of the ad and its product. This is vital to knowing how effective your campaign was and if your dollars were well spent. Direct mail allows for a very fast ROI due to its personalized marketing and the ability to specifically target your client list.

Overall, direct mail allows businesses to send out a specific, personalized, targeted message at a very low CPM, (cost per thousand). Businesses can test their markets before investing a lot of money into a new advertising campaign and see results quickly to assess its viability. It’s a cost effective and fast way of promoting your business and keeping your advertising costs low.

About Variable Thinking

Variable Thinking is a Chicago area, full-service direct marketing firm that handles everything from ad creation to direct mail fulfillment in its 30,000 square foot facility. Variable Thinking also specializes in market segmentation and results tracking.