How to conduct an effective Direct Marketing campaign?

How to make the most of your customer file?

What are the key success factors in direct marketing?

The direct marketing can be defined as the set of techniques that aim to communicate directly with clients or potential clients in order to generate returns and sales. We talk about “direct marketing campaign”: e-mailing campaign, call campaign, SMS or sending postal mail.

Direct marketing and digital marketing campaigns can be conducted in B2B (business to business: communication to other companies) or in B2C (business to consumer). If the goal is to communicate only with the acquired customers, the direct marketing operations come under the management of the customer relationship.

In all cases, the quality of the source data is a key element of success.

The Evolution of Direct Marketing

The golden age of direct marketing was in the 1980s and 1990s. The return rates in relation to postal mail were then higher than today. The emergence of the Internet in the mid-1990s revolutionized direct marketing by offering a much cheaper solution than physical mail.

Nowadays, it is increasingly difficult to obtain positive results from an e-mailing or direct marketing campaign, in fact:

Consumers Are Saturated With Messages of All Kinds and Tend To Sort Quickly,

The tools and software for sending postal or electronic mail have become more democratic (some are free), which has further increased the competition in terms of communication,

Consumers are increasingly suspicious of the multiplication of scams and phishing attempts (phishing).

Yet direct marketing remains a potentially effective tool if it is well prepared and well used.

The success or failure of a campaign can be played out with a few details.

Here are our tips for successful direct marketing campaigns including e-mailing. Check below to make your direct marketing campaign more effective:

Read Also: 4 Principles Of Marketing Strategy You Should Know

Tip # 1: Address the targeting and quality of data

The quality of the source data is essential. E-mail addresses, postal addresses, and telephone numbers must be functional, up-to-date, consistent with the targeted population, and free of use.

The data may come from:

• The company’s own customer file (or prospect file),
• The purchase of a qualified lead file: email file, phone file or physical address file. In the case of file purchase, it is advisable to make guarantees as to the quality/relevance of the data.

As an example, email database.marketing offers complete customer databases, data processing services such as duplication, and services related to fine knowledge of customer characteristics.

Tip # 2: Your message must be adapted to the target and answer a problem

This is the second key success factor. Again, everything can be played on invalid details. The use of one word, one argument, one color, one font rather than another may or may not trigger the action.

The message must be perfectly adapted to the target. It must answer a problem or a concrete concern. It must convey a concrete response or call to action. It must look authentic and be reassuring. Finally, it must be accompanied by proof of the effectiveness of the product or service.

Read Also: 6 Marketing Practices That Could Double Your ECommerce Sales

Tip # 3: Use adapted tools

Particular attention should be paid to the direct marketing tools used:

• They must allow the message to be broadcast in the right format and at the right time,
• They must allow a significant productivity gain compared to traditional solutions, and this for an acceptable cost.

Many companies offer customized database solutions coupled with e-mail, direct mail or SMS communication tools.

Read Also: Top 10 Digital Marketing Tools For ECommerce Websites

Tip # 4: Choose the right time for marketing

The choice of timing is essential, and can dramatically change the rate of return. Depending on the sector of activity, we will avoid periods of holidays, holidays, long weekends…

Tip # 5: Measure the returns from a campaign

Measuring returns from a direct marketing campaign is critical to whether it is worthwhile to renew the campaign or not. It’s about:

• Aggregate all the costs of the operation: time spent, cost of the acquisition of the addresses and data, cost of creation of the message (graphics for example), cost of the solution of diffusion, cost of the providers, and the cost of sending it itself.
• Measure the revenue generated by the operation in terms of turnover, or rather of gross margin. This is not always obvious: the operation can generate returns over a very long time; it is not always easy to ascertain where new clients come from; finally, we must measure the potential future margin generated by a new client in the event that it remains faithful.

Hope these trick will help you to lunch your marketing campaign effectively. If you have any suggestion which we would have included, let us know.

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