The Benefits of Direct Response Marketing
No small business can be truly successful without an effective marketing strategy. But for those entrepreneurs who are not exactly marketing wizards, it can seem like a complex world of strange acronyms and unfamiliar complexities with results that can be difficult to gauge. From print advertisements and TV commercials to SEO and social media, marketing is an entire industry unto itself– and one that many small business owners have little time for.
However, direct response marketing is one area of the field that offers several advantages for small business owners and can be truly effective for nearly any type of business. In addition to opening up a direct line of communication with your clientele, direct response marketing:
- Provides a great return on investment (ROI), no matter your marketing budget
- Produces easily measurable results
- Helps increase the overall efficiency of a sales force
- Allows businesses to reach outside of local areas or traditional markets
- Builds real relationships with customers and clients
What is Direct Response Marketing?
Whereas all effective forms of marketing should be targeted towards a certain group of people and seek to engage with that target market, direct response marketing takes that engagement a step further. It is designed to elicit a specific, measured response resulting from a potential customer’s direct response to the marketer.
This type of marketing can be used to ask for customer emails on your website, solicit comments on an article, produce social media responses and similar forms of direct engagement and feedback. Before the digital era, most direct response marketing was done through telemarketing and direct mail. While these can still be effective in many industries, the internet has opened up a universe of new possibilities for this efficient form of marketing, and small businesses have benefited greatly.
In addition to the time-honored traditions of direct mail and telephone calls, modern direct response marketing can take the form of:
- Calls to action (CTAs) on your website
- Emails that are designed to elicit a certain response
- Digital surveys
- Comment requests on blogs and social media
Direct responses can be one of the simplest forms of marketing for those who are not experts in the field, as the results are easy to measure and quantify. However, even the best direct response campaigns should be used in conjunction with other marketing techniques as part of an overall strategy. Bringing each element together can help ensure real results and a productive business.