Times change and advertising tools and techniques evolve with every passing year. However, despite all this, the power of direct marketing cannot be denied. It remains a solid constant in this ever-shifting field, but you can make this particular tool more beneficial for your business by augmenting your direct marketing strategy with some innovative tricks.
Shift Your Marketing Focus Away from the Products
If you want your marketing campaign to succeed today, you must focus on the needs of the buyer. One of the best ways to do this is to start promoting the problems your products solve, instead of advertising the product/service itself.
Put the spotlight on the solution. For example, if you are manufacturing spot-removers and your selling line goes along the lines of ‘buy Product Name is the bestselling spot remover in the US’ change it to ‘get rid of any spots without damaging the fabric of your favorite coat with the help of Product Name’.
You should prepare several advertisement lines like this, focusing on the benefits that the consumers would receive choosing your particular product/service. To determine what exactly to include in these ads, think of the problems your product solves and present the solution as its main selling point.
This approach is most important for direct marketing, in particular, because it’s the most ‘direct’. It instantly focuses the consumer’s attention on the most important benefit of your product, highlighting its advantages. Mix it with a clear call to action, and you’ll be able to boost your sales quite fast.
Use the Power of Print
For all that we live in the digital age, printed marketing tools remain extremely efficient. In fact, a study by the True Impact Marketing conducted in 2015 showed that consumers’ brand recall is 70% better after studying a high-quality digital print as compared to a digital ad. It also indicates that people spend 21% more brainpower of studying digital mediums. It is a bad thing for marketing purposes as overthinking reduces the ‘buy now’ impulse.
Considering these stats, resorting to brochure and booklet printing is a sound promotion strategy if you want to make a lasting impact on your prospective customers. You also need to understand that the quality of these printed materials would affect the way people perceive your business. Therefore, it’s imperative to get beautiful, professionally designed booklets, printed on good paper.
Mix Online and Off-Line Marketing
Direct marketing doesn’t have to be off-line only as you can increase the overall impact by combining some on and off-line promotional tools. For example, include hashtags for your social media campaigns and/or discount codes for your online store in your leaflets or flyers.
It would introduce your customers obtained via a direct marketing tool to the more sophisticated digital campaign that can get them ‘hooked’.
Make It Personal
One of the main reasons why direct marketing remains effective even today is that it’s personal. To use this promotion method with utmost efficiency you have to exploit this benefit to the fullest.
It means no sending out generic advertisement booklets or giving away flyers without clear CTAs. What you need is to get the potential buyer involved from ‘the first glance’, so make your main message stand out.
To achieve this, it must appeal to the individual and call on them to identify with your cause. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and think what can motivate you, as a person, to buy this kind of product/service. Take into account specific traits of your target audience. Surveys would be a great help for designing your direct marketing messages.
Direct Marketing in 2017
Digital marketing is extremely powerful, but the direct remains a great tool for attracting customers. If you want your business to succeed with direct marketing today, you should focus on ‘selling’ solutions and personalizing your messages so that the customers feel compelled to follow through with your CTAs.
