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4 Parts To Developing A Direct Marketing StrategyJordan Mullen
Part One: Have the Right Mission Most small to medium size businesses enter the battlefield with the wrong mission in mind. They go in targeting too much of the market at once and they get destroyed before they have a chance to establish equitable trade. Strategic marketing is NOT trying to dominate the whole market but rather target narrow niche markets. Do you have a multi-million dollar advertising budget? If you don't, you will not succeed in reaching and appealing to your whole market at once. This is what the large corporations do. They spend millions of dollars on branding to get their identity well know in the market place. You need a targeted marketing strategy so you can better reach and engage your niche markets. A niche market is a small slice of the market which has a specific need that your products and services can provide for. For example, if you're a home loan brokerage, your niche market or audience would be people looking at reducing their debt or people looking to move into their first home. If you were an Appliance store, your optimal audience would be people looking for certain brands. By conducting targeted marketing campaigns you will generate more business for every dollar you spend on advertising. One crucial thing about target marketing is you should never enter the battlefield of business without knowing what niche markets you are going to target. You need to do the necessary research, as a standard due diligence practice, to define what niche markets you can target and how you are going to appeal to them. Your previous clients hold the key to unlocking extremely useful information. One way of getting this information is by conducting incentive driven surveys. If you conduct a survey with the right questions you will be able to discover the character and motivations of your ideal audience.
Part Two: Use The Best Weapons There are many businesses trying to win this war by using old and ineffective weapons or marketing tools. A strategic marketer knows he always needs to keep using the most appropriate weapons to target the market. If he doesn't do this the enemy will capture that market before he does. Statistics show over 15 million Australians are now using the internet. When you are researching, what do you normally do? Go to Google.com or Yahoo.com? A large number of these 15 million Australians will always do their research before they buy and normally the first place they go to is a search engine. If you have an effective marketing web site you should be trying to channel as much traffic into your web site as possible from search engines. In the past it has been very difficult to get to the front page of a search engine. Now, you can get to the number one page of Google and Yahoo within 5 minutes. There is an advertising concept that has been developed by Google and Yahoo called 'Pay Per Click' advertising. By setting up a Pay-Per-Click advertising account you will be able to channel highly targeted traffic into your web site. The best thing about this form of advertising is that you only pay for each click into your web site which is helpful for businesses that have strict advertising budgets. The way to get the best results from this form of advertising is by setting up highly targeted ads that are only displayed when your market audience types in specific keywords in the key search engines. If you do this you will know that the people visiting your web site are interested and proactively searching for what you offer.
Part Three: Keeping the Enemy at Bay There are a lot of people on the battlefield so this is why you need to fight off the enemy from taking your customer base. Competition is good, it forces you to be innovative and efficient about how you approach your market. If you don't give your customers good reason to stay with you, your competitors will give them a reason to leave. So this is why it's critical for you to keep closely connected with your previous clients. Have you heard of the 80/20 principle? 20% of your clients will produce 80% of your revenue. This is why you shouldn't spend your entire marketing budget on generating new clients but making old ones happy so they keep coming back to you for more. The big battle in business is getting the customers mind share. When you think hamburgers, what is the first business that comes to mind? McDonalds, Hungry Jacks? These businesses are always battling for mind share. If you can get mind share you will know your previous clients will always go back to your business when they are in need. One thing you have that will help you to gain more mind share from your customers is your intellectual property. If you are an industry expert you should have a lot of useful information that is relevant and desired by your market. By constantly giving this useful information to customers, they will know you are the leading authority in your industry. There are many different ways of doing this; one is by sending out a newsletter to your client database on a regular basis. Lots of businesses do this but they send out promotional information rather than useful information. People don't like promotional material because they class it as junk mail. What businesses should be doing is not selling but giving. By frequently sending out a newsletter that shares useful tips, ideas and articles you will help clients realise you are valuable to them. Think about this - where will people go next when they need what you sell? A business they don't know or trust? Or a business that regularly keeps in contact with them and is always giving out valuable and useful information?
Within your customer base there is a group of clients that are constantly talking about you and indirectly continue to generate more business and profit for you. Who are they? Have you singled them out? Do you have incentives that will motivate them? Are you training them on how they can do this job better? In the world of marketing this group of people is known as your affiliates. The more focused attention you spend on them the more money they will put in your pocket. One way of getting your army of affiliates motivated is by offering them a decent incentive for sales they get you. If they are generating business for you, imagine how much business they will create if you motivate them with incentives. There are many different incentives you can offer, but the number one incentive that motivates best is money. And the more money you offer, the more motivated they will be. You also need to consider training this army so they can be more effective in bringing you more leads and referrals. Imagine sending an army out to battle without the necessary training required, they will not succeed. It is in your best interest to train your affiliates to be more effeopy of the report '7 Marketing Secrets' ($129 Value) at www.responsedriven.com.au
The Right Way To Conducting Direct Mail Marketing Many marketing campaigns conducted by businesses today are often a very 'hit and miss' affair. The fundamental reason why marketing campaigns fail or prove ineffective is because most businesses try and say everything to everyone instead of something to someone. If you want to get the best possible response from your advertising budget you need to target a niche market. A niche market is a group of people for whom a business develops and delivers a service that specifically fits the needs and problems of that group. People don't buy products and services, they buy solutions to the problems and frustrations they are experiencing. For example, people pay for a gym membership so they lose weight or someone will buy a security alarm system because they want to eliminate the fear of their possessions being stolen. If a business can formulate a message that provides solutions to target peoples specific problems and then present it to a group of people who are most likely to respond, you will generate far more results as the message is designed specifically for the problem.
How to get the right message to the right market One way to get the right message to the right market is by using a
direct marketing list. You can acquire a direct marketing list based on
the demographic profile of the customers who normally buy from you. By
doing this you can get your message to people who are more likely to
respond to the solutions you offer. Whether they are young married
couples who live north Sydney or business directors who have 40+
employees in the building industry - there are ways to get the
appropriate list of the people needing your business. A quality direct marketing list is an important tool but presenting the right message is also necessary. The old way of doing this was the long copy model - long sales letters, A4 brochures and media packs. Unless you have a big advertising budget, this can be an extremely expensive exercise where you rarely get a return on your advertising outlay. The new the way of doing direct marketing is by presenting a short message that defines and appeals to the intended market and then directs potential clients to the web site for more detailed information. The most cost-effective way of communicating a short message to your market is by sending people a postcard. Direct mail postcards are perfect for short copy messages because there is enough space on the card to convey the solution your business offers. The postcard is also an appealing way of directing people to the relevant business line or web site. Discover how our Direct Marketing Consultants can help to IMPROVE the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns and INCREASE your sales lead generation. Response Driven Marketing is group of direct response marketing consultants who advise and develop highly effective marketing systems for Small-Medium enterprises. Claim your FREE copy of the report '7 Marketing Secrets' ($129 Value) at www.responsedriven.com.au |
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