Branding and direct marketing shouldn’t go together. They are night and day in the marketing world. But, in a few short words, I am going to show you how you how to do it…and succeed! Branding creates awareness or build on an attitude about your company. It’s what you want people to “think” or “feel” about you. In direct response advertising, you are trying to motivate people into action. Pick up the phone, stop into your showroom or send you an email. It’s what you want them to “do”.
Breaking down branding
Branding doesn’t do much in the way of converting prospects into client or customers on a per message basis, but over time, branding will be the subtle nudge people need to move them into action. What branding should do is:
- Get attention for your company
- An image or feeling about your company, Think Starbucks.
- Memorable…if done right
- A powerful, creative idea
Direct response advertising is what makes the cash register ring. Great direct response advertising:
- Also get’s attention
- Delivers an offer to the person consuming the ad
- Motivates the reader into responding
- Begins building the relationship between client or customer and you
- To get the most out of your direct mail, you need to…
- Target the highest potential prospects, in other words, people ready to buy!
- Motivate the consumer perform an action, so you need to ask for a response
- Measure the success with some type of key code or offer code
- Expect a positive ROI
To generate a positive ROI, you need to focus on the key elements of a direct marketing campaign. This means you need to focus on your list by trying to pinpoint “buyer”. Once you have your list, you then need to nail down your offer. You do this by showing the reader what they get, and what they have to do to get it. Finally, the creative. This is the artwork and copy that makes up the direct mail piece.
If you had to break down the three key elements on a percentage basis, you should focus:
50% of your efforts on your list
30% of your efforts on the offer
20% of your efforts on the creative
In the end, you need to forget about reach and frequency, and aim for responsiveness. You do this with an offer-driven strategy with a strong call to action. Then you segment your new clients or customers by value, and treat them differently. Once you do that, you need to cross-sell. In McDonald’s terms, that would be “Do you want two apple pies for $1.00”? You also need to upsell. Again, using McDonald’s vernacular, it would be “Would you like to Supersize that for just .59 cents”?
Once you have done all this, you profile your best customers and then rinse and repeat!