Specific branch of marketing, Direct marketing is popular with businesses of all sizes to boost their sales. Formerly restricted to the field of mail order sales, the latter’s potential has grown tremendously with the rise of IT. Indeed, while the Internet offers new adapted communications channels, data processing tools allow simpler and faster personalization of communication campaigns. This is why over the past decade, the budget invested in direct marketing by French companies reached 44%.1 of their overall marketing spend. So what is the definition of “ Direct marketing ” Exactly ? And what are its objectives? This is what we will see in what follows.
Direct Marketing: Definition
Direct marketing is a set of sales techniques based on communication and advertising. It was defined in 1961 by advertising executive Lester Wunderman. Sometimes it is also called direct marketing one-to-one marketing. This expression, which can be translated as “person-to-person marketing”, is quite evocative of what distinguishes direct marketing from other marketing strategies. Indeed, in direct marketing, the company cultivates a close relationship with customers made possible by the absence of an intermediary.
In other words, direct marketing to deploys on direct communication channels (email, telephone, etc.) And on the contrary excludes using television, social networks or radio. However, using a communication channel without an intermediary is not enough to do direct marketing. Direct marketing is based on the possibility of interaction between the prospect and the salesperson. The prospect must even be invited to participate in the exchange, by indicating his preferences, by answering questionnaires, by expressing his opinion on what he thinks of the price, etc. Finally, the exchange between the prospect and the salesperson must result in the personalization of promotions and offers made to the customer.
So, direct marketing is based on these three principles :
personalization, interactivityAnd absence of intermediary.
Furthermore, this communication strategy East supposed to improve the quality of the relationship between the company and customers, and therefore ultimately the conversion. In direct marketing, the company’s strategy adapts to the customer and not the other way around. The result is that the latter feels better understood, listened to and respected.
However, following a direct marketing approach can only be done under certain conditions. First of all, the company must have precise data on its prospects : name, mail address Or phone number are necessary for the first contact. Moreover, the company must have the means to precisely segment its customers. During the exchanges, it must in fact be able to keep a lot of data in order to personalize its offers. This requires scrupulous management of a database, and ideally a CRM software. Finally, the company must necessarily be ready to increase the budget invested in its commercial teams. The latter must indeed spend more time for each prospect or customer. For this last reason, direct marketing is mostly preferred by companies selling high value-added products and services. The most representative example: direct marketing is particularly used by the automotive sector2.
The 3 key objectives of direct marketing to keep in touch with customers and prospects
After knowing its definition, it is important to emphasize the three main objectives of direct marketing to consumers.
1. Encourage prospects to take action
The key word of direct marketingIt is ” the action “. It is true that any action the prospect undertakes with the company further anchors the relationship between the two parties. In other words, with every action he takes, the prospect feels more engaged with the company and thus gets closer to the date of his next purchase. You still have to keep in mind the image of car sales. For the majority of customers, buying a car represents a significant investment. It would therefore be psychologically abrupt to pay cash for your new vehicle as soon as you put your feet in the concession. To overcome this, salespeople provide a series of reassuring steps that prospects can go through before finally closing the transaction.
Gold, to encourage people to take action, there must be an incentive. The smallest action must generate immediate pleasure so that the prospect wants to accomplish it. In the context of a car sale, one can think of the test drive and the satisfaction of projecting oneself in a new car. However, incentives to act can take a wide variety of forms depending on the area of activity. It can be a gift to be picked up in store, a free aperitif at a fair, a conference with free entry, among others.
On the Internet, and on the information market, the incentive can consist of a hidden video or a blog article that you unlock after creating a customer account or leaving your email address.
However, for the incentive to work, the company must be prepared to give valuable information. It must invest time, even money to create real motivation and make the prospect understand that he is respected.
2. Inform customers
Information constitutes a step prior to building loyalty. In Direct marketing, prospects are informed of new offers that relate to their areas of interest. Here too, a direct marketing strategy presupposes standing out by the degree of customization applied. To avoid drowning prospects in a flood of information that bores them, we only communicate about new offers likely to interest them. This involves taking advantage of a customer database to anticipate, according to the needs and problems of each prospect, who the potential future customers are.
3. Build customer loyalty
Finally, customer loyalty is also a major issue in direct marketing. It is after the first sale that the investment made in the sales teams will be fully profitable. Indeed, after the first sale, the information gleaned on a customer is worth gold. We are certain of the type of offer that interests him and what product or service he already has. Therefore, it becomes possible to personalize communication with even more precision. In particular, we can promote additional services to its past acquisitions (what we call additional sale).
To have : How to choose your CRM?
A direct marketing campaign always has a message to communicate
The heart of a direct marketing campaign, this is the message. It is from the latter that the rest of the communication or advertising derives. To be effective, in direct marketing, the message must respect the following three criteria:
- Clear : Each message must correspond to a unique problem or desire, and offer a corresponding unique offer. Clarity ensures that you are understood by your prospects, facilitates the relationship and therefore the sale;
- Specific : the problem that the prospect encounters, and the offer proposed as a solution must be perfectly defined;
- Promising : each offer is accompanied by a promise, which the message at the heart of the campaign promotes. The promise conveyed must always guarantee an improvement in the quality of life of the prospect after purchase.
To achieve the perfect message, it is essential to have correctly identified a target and to have understood it well.
Identify and understand the target
The target of a direct marketing campaign can be a consumer as well as an organization. In all cases, it is about being able to clearly define a typical portrait of the future client. Their interests, problems encountered, aspirations, sociology and purchasing habits must be perfectly defined. By getting psychologically closer to the target of a campaign the perfect offer can be designed.
Nevertheless this targeting work, if it starts before the launch of the first promotion, must be continued throughout the campaign. Indeed, the progress of a marketing campaign direct allows you to glean new data on targeted entities. The timing of purchase, product returns, customer reviews are all clues that allow us to refine the standard portrait previously drawn up.
Of course, for the identification of targets to be optimal, equip yourself with a CRM is almost inevitable (especially for a company that has already grown).
FAQs
To best measure the impact of a direct marketing campaign on the web, he must have CRM software. CRM software (customer relationship management) allows you to record the interactions of a prospect (or customer) with the company. For example, can be recorded in a CRM : answering a phone call, opening a commercial email, adding a product to the cart.
The collected data can then be processed by mathematical functions to create KPIs (key performance indicator). A KPI is a form of “score”, which allows you to judge the overall performance of a campaign or communication action.. By iterations, by relying on relevant KPIs, the company can optimize its marketing strategy over time.
Direct marketing often involves the use of at least one of the following communication tools:
‣ L’emailing ;
‣ Postal mail;
‣ The phone call;
‣ MMS, SMS or instant messaging.
We call marketing automation the set of processes allowing you to automate contact with a prospect or customer. For example, setting up the spontaneous sending of an abandoned basket reminder by email is marketing automation. Marketing automation can be part of a direct marketing strategy more broadly.
During a campaign, monitoring of results is ideally done from CRM software, by comparative KPI measurements. Furthermore, the customer acquisition cost and the average amount spent by each customer make it possible to estimate, over a certain period of time, the profitability of a campaign.