Using Integrated Direct Marketing Strategies
Combine Direct Mail, Email, Telemarketing and Cell Phone Ads
May 21, 2009
In the current globally competitive market, it may be difficult to succeed with business promotions and sales campaign efforts with just a single marketing approach. As observed by Stan Rapp, author of Maximarketing and Beyond Maximarketing, "The days of dominance by a single advertising medium – TV for the image-building and direct mail for the direct marketer – are over.
Direct Marketing Still Popular
Direct Marketing remains one of the best marketing strategies among businesses around the world and especially in the US. According to a 2008 report by the US-based Direct Marketing Association Inc. in 2007, both commercial and non-profit marketers spent $173.2 billion on direct marketing in the United States. “Measured against total US sales, these advertising expenditures generated almost $2.03 trillion in incremental sales. In 2007, direct marketing accounted for 10.2% of total US gross domestic product,” stated the DMA.
According to the DMA, in 2007, there were 1.6 million direct marketing employees in the US alone whose collective sales efforts directly supported nearly 9.0 million other jobs. The DMA pointed out that the 2007 figures shows an increasing popularity of of direct sales approaches. In his book, Direct Marketing, Edward Nash, asserted that direct sales marketing strategy is used by more than half of Fortune 500 companies.
Why Integrated Direct Marketing Strategy
Despite the growth and popularity of direct promotions and sales, experts say the real value of that kind of marketing lies in the integration of different media channels and tools in its application.
US-based direct marketing and customer relations firm, Ernan Roman Direct Marketing, quotes J. Michael Lawrie, U.S. Vice President and Area General Manager of IBM Corporation, as emphasizing the importance of integrated marketing strategies: “The integrated direct marketing process reminds us to contact customers and prospects on their terms, not ours. Customers want to be treated like individuals, not averages. With the right data, customer relationships can still be one-to-one without being face-to-face."
Besides the essential value of being able to obtain relevant consumer feedback, the use of multiple channels for marketing makes it possible to reach out to consumers through their preferred channels or means of communication. The use of integrated tools also facilitates targeted marketing, considered one of the best ways for ensuring customer satisfaction.
Combining Direct Mails, Email Campaigns and Telemarketing
Companies are embracing integration of different marketing channels. A study report by the Direct Marketing Association revealed that 57% of marketing campaigns that were studied in 2007 used integrated strategies with about 47% of those campaigns combining mainly direct mail campaigns, email campaigns and telemarketing.
Besides the combination of direct mails, email campaigns and telemarketing, the use of mobile phone advertising in which ads are text-messaged or sent to mobile phones is gradually becoming popular and may be considered as a good element in a direct promotion media mix.
In a New York Times article captioned, “It’s Not the Ads; It’s Getting the Bill,” published on August 10, 2008, Alex Mindlin reported that though the majority of people said they detest have ads sent to their cell phones, a quarter of those who ever received such ads said they responded to them at least once. “It’s one of the hottest new channels available,” the Times quoted Edward T. Manzitti, vice president for research of the Direct Marketing Association as having said.
Though direct marketing remains a good sales strategy, it is done best when tools like direct mails, emails, telemarketing, cell phone advertising, and others like direct face-to-face selling are integrated as a single dynamic marketing effort instead of using them separately. This is because the combined advantages of the individual approaches offsets any weaknesses that each may have and as observed by Stan Rapp, the days of dominance by a single advertising medium may be over.
