What is Direct Response Marketing?
Many small business owners are asking “what is direct response marketing?” and wondering if it’s right for them. This article should help you answer both these important questions.
Direct response marketing is a marketing method that demands a direct response from your potential customers. This type of marketing is used to answer questions, present your branding, products and the reason you do what you do. Customers love this, as they are offered the opportunity to respond, whether that be in the way of signing up for a newsletter, posting a comment on your site or blog, or purchasing a product from you.
Remember, with direct response marketing (and all your marketing tactics) be sure to target your market as much as possible. For example, if you’re doing a FaceBook Ad, be sure to select as many specific criteria to narrow down the audience to only those who will be most likely to buy your service or product.
What does direct response marketing look like? Well, it comes in many forms, including:
- Direct mail
- Print ads
- Radio and TV ads
- Coupons or other incentives
- Telemarketing
- Social Media Ads
- Blogs, Social Bookmarking, Online Articles
Some of the advantages of direct marketing are:
- A great way to use free time during lulls in business
- Productive way to communicate and empower you to create more relationships
- Great way to up- and cross-sell to current customers
- Low cost way to rustle up new business
- Used as leverage to turn small sales into large sales
- Supplement your current marketing program
- Cost-effective way to reach target markets
- Offers measurable results
- Reach outside your local area for new business
- Increase the effectiveness of your sales force
- With highly targeted outreach and less “junk-mail”, it’s now more effective than it used to be.
These are all great things that can come from just taking a few simple steps to putting together a direct response marketing plan and executing it.
“I honestly don’t think you’ll ever find a safer, lower-risk, higher-profit method of increasing your business or profession than direct-response marketing.” Jay Abraham
What is direct response marketing? Direct response marketing is one of the best ways to launch your business on a large scale and reach out to everyone in your target market whether they are in your local area or not. Our FREE test drive can help you put together a great direct response marketing plan and get you on your way to heightened success.
Lessons Learned from Donald Trump
Today we’ll talk about shameless self-promotion and how it can benefit you and your small business.
That’s right, I said it! Shameless! After all, we are learning from President Donald Trump here. Bold, shouting, twittering and unafraid.
It’s all about self-promotion! Self-promotion comes in many forms and you can use different tactics to get your name out there. Look at politicians! Talk about self-promotion and in some not so discreet ways, at that. But, seriously, consider some of the major superstars we all know. Frank Kern, Madonna, Paris Hilton, Howard Stern and Bill Clinton, just to name a few.
We all self promote. Did you raise your hand in class to show the teacher you knew the answer? Of course! That’s self-promotion. This is the kind of self-promotion we are talking about. With dignity, class and the knowledge to back it up. If you self-promote only to prove you don’t really know what you’re talking about, you’re going to lose business.
Natural self-promoters are the former and I want to tell you about the three major traits they have and use to build themselves and their businesses.
- The first is position. You need to position yourself around people who can make a difference in your life. You need to do this frequently. You need to wake up every morning and ask yourself “Who can I meet today who will make a difference in my success?” In fact, go a step further, write it in big, bold letters and tape it on your bathroom mirror.
Also consider these important questions:
Who can help me meet my goals? Who can teach me what I want to learn? Who is at the level I want to be in 2-5 years?
Is it a prospective customer/client? A colleague with contacts? An association with key members who may become prospects?
Don’t settle into interacting with the people who are the easiest to access. You need to reach outside your comfort zone and there you will find a wealth of new connections that will bring you great success.
- Now, let’s talk about Style. No, this doesn’t mean you need an Armani suit to bring in more business (though, let’s be honest-it wouldn’t hurt). What this really means is how are you different from your competitors and others in your industry. What makes you memorable with customers?
If you are meeting a lot of people and they don’t remember you once you leave the room, you have a serious problem! This means you have an opportunity to present yourself in a more memorable way.
There are lots of little subtle changes you can make. Reassess your:
- Business cards
- Company message
- Your picture
- Your wording
Maybe even, your hairstyle (of course, now we’re back to the expensive suit, but it really works!). Some folks have enough money and visibility that a hairstyle doesn’t matter – I won’t mention any names …
You get the idea. There are lots of little ways you can work on making your image and business more successful. Also, consider how you sound on the phone and how you greet people at meetings or other events. Think about your 30-sec elevator speech.
- The third trait of natural promoters is repetition. You can’t say it once and leave it at that. Successful self-promoters say it as many times as they need until they get a response. Would you remember a commercial for Coca-Cola if you only saw it once, no! You see it over and over and eventually you head out to the store.
You, also, have to make multiple impressions on those you are networking with in order to build brand awareness. Repetition is in direct connection with positioning. Once you find people to network with, reach out and find hundreds more who can help in your success as well.