Most of the time when you look at an advert on TV or on a newspaper, it may inspire you to laugh, think deeply about a problem or be amazed at the creativity employed on the advert. But how many times do you see the ad and immediately get an in pulse to buy? Not often, in fact you very rarely do. This is because most marketers do not use direct response marketing or even understand it.
The reason for this is that most advertising is developed for the wrong reason. To entertain, amuse or even win awards.
But the main, and in most cases only, reason for a business owner to invest in advertising, is to sell something. If I sell bread and invest in an advert to sell my bread then I’d better get a boost in bread sold and earn back at least more than what I spent on the marketing campaign. Otherwise I’m just losing money.
This is clearly the most responsible and cost effective way to run your marketing. So why is there so much irresponsible marketing going around? Why don’t business owners employ the concept of ROI (Return on Investment) to their marketing by incorporating direct response marketing?
The only advertising that asks the customer to do something, which is either to contact you or buy, is Direct Response Marketing. In direct response marketing, you instruct your customer on what to do as soon they have watched your advert. You can instruct them to call your shop immediately, to call a toll free voice message to get more information or to come visit your shop for a specific reward or discount.
The responses from your message are then weighed and the effectiveness of a particular marketing message can be determined. From this, the business owner can decide to continue with the marketing campaign or change to something else that has better results.
Direct Response Marketing has several tools with it that guarantee its effectiveness. These are;
1. Offers
An offer is simply that; an offer to a customer as a reward of doing something you want. An offer is the carrot that you dangle in front of your customer to get them to notice you and approach. This can be considered positive reinforcement to encourage repeat behavior from your customers.
2. Instructions
When you make an offer you have to tell the customer exactly how they are going to go about collecting what you have offered and how they can contact you for more information as they need it. Be as literal as possible to avoid assumptions.
3. Deadlines
Direct response marketing places deadlines on offers to motivate immediate action and prevent procrastination. Procrastination is the single biggest killer to buying decisions.
It is only emergency purchases for must have products or services, like emergency medical services, that procrastination, mostly, does not affect.
4. Measurement of effectiveness
Direct Response Marketing has in it means to measure the effectiveness of the message to prevent wasting money on messages or offers that don’t work. By asking the customer and motivating them to contact you, it is now easy to measure their response and find out what is working.
5. Strong follow-up
Once the customer has been attracted and they contact the business the next step is to Capture all information of buyers and visitors and immediately send follow-up messages or gifts or even more offers.
By learning how to effectively use the five tools, you can make direct response marketing your primary and most effective marketing for your business.
The overall advantage is that direct response marketing has logic to how it works and can therefor include the business owner in the creation of the message.
Unfortunately, direct response marketing is not as flashy and fun to watch as other more ‘modern’ marketing techniques. But what it lacks in flashiness it compensates for with cost effectiveness and ease of use.