What Is Direct Marketing?

Although people may not be in the habit of referring to it by the name, direct marketing has been practised for a very long time. This is nothing out of the ordinary, of course – we are by nature an informal species and are in the habit of shortening words and phrases down and using slang to refer to things. Therefore it is really no surprise that a term like “direct marketing” is more of an industry-specific item of jargon than a phrase used commonly in everyday conversation.

For clarification, direct marketing is really any form of marketing that takes place without an intermediary such as a newspaper (which carries an advertisement in among the columns of text about the day’s news) or something similar. With direct marketing, you are going right to the customer without passing through anyone else. Much of the standard marketing of the day is done by going to the media outlet that will carry your advertisement and paying them for the privilege. Perhaps just as often, a business will go to a dedicated advertising agency and get them to find outlets willing to carry the advertisement. To see your advertising spend break even, you will need it to produce a lot of customers.

Direct marketing has removed this necessity – but in a way it has always existed. People have been going direct to their customers for a while. Anyone who has printed off a sheaf of flyers and stood in the street handing them out is going right to the customer. The limitations of this method are clear enough in themselves, though, especially to anyone who has walked down a street and seen just how many discarded flyers litter the pavement from time to time. Direct marketing has existed for longer than we sometimes imagine, what has changed is the method and the efficiency.

You can place flyers in the hands of five hundred people, but if they are five hundred complete strangers you can make no guarantees as to how interested they will be to receive them. Even if the flyer is telling them of something that will benefit them a great deal, the fact that it has been handed to them by someone they don’t know makes it all the more likely that it will end up with all the others on the pavement. Knowing your customer, and giving them a reason to be interested, is the key to effective direct marketing.

It is important to make sure that your marketing campaign is targeted as efficiently as possible. A well-conceived direct marketing campaign need not cost you a penny, but it will take some time out of your day and so you will want to see some return on it. Assuming, for example, that you are sending a group email to a range of potential or previous customers, it should not read like a typical advertisement. It is somewhat jarring to be “sold to” in the impersonal manner a lot of advertisements employ, when you are reading an email addressed to you – which despite what some people may say, is a personal medium. It is this balance that you will need to strike.