Direct Marketing is a method of addressing the consumer specifically with mail or an email to obtain a beneficial relationship with said consumer. The most common usage is direct mail pieces. I am sure everyone has received a Publisher’s Clearinghouse letter informing them of their new riches. But did this over saturation and lost promises kill direct mail?
Most people have received “junk” mail and simply thrown it away. Other people have found these pieces useful and in fact look forward to receiving them but has the birth of the Internet put the nail in the coffin for direct mail? No. Because if the piece is strategically presented to the right target audience you and client can reap big benefits from this old media. Many of them, however just do not target the right person at the right time and become amoeba floating in a sea of mail.
The obvious benefits to marketers are the quantifiable results. But a fresh new approach to direct mail could be the answer to a new life. For instance, using a viral approach to your direct mail campaign giving benefits to those who can spread the word. This could be particularly useful when discouraging calling in to customer service. At my company a big premium is paid to the call center when it goes from IVR to live person. By getting the word out and cutting down on calls to the center savings could be posted on both ends of the spectrum.
How does mail achieve this any more cost efficiently than email?
Strategy involving targeting the right people and great creative that encourages sharing the mailer is the answer. A postcard would be nice but an interactive postcard with important dates and great call to action would persuade consumers to share the piece and get great savings and so on.
In the end direct mail lives on but must find ways to survive in an electronic age where the computer is faster, cheaper and gives a better ROI.
Advergirl has cited a few interesting facts on her blog about consumers online shopping behaviors from Comscore. According to Comscore, 89% of consumers shop online for product information before making a purchasing decision at a brick and mortar. This seems a bit high to me but still the fundamental idea behind it is very interesting.
These numbers seem to show a seismic shift in consumers behaviors and it only reinforces the notion that brand equity on the web is more important now than ever.
The new consumer model seems to reflect that purchase decisions start on the web and end as offline purchases in-store. What does this mean? Campaigns that are not integrated risk disconnecting the consumer from the brand’s equity and possibly losing the purchase. Integration and reinforcement of your core equities online and offline should become the basic building blocks of a great online marketing strategy.
How does a brand successfully keep its story consistent through all the various channels today? First, it should decide early on the narrative it wants to tell and make it compelling and integrated into your product. A compelling story/product will inspire buzz and reverberate into further social circles and that means increased market penetration. Second, it should assign the task of brand police to someone who has been on the team since the beginning and allow them to enforce equity. Its important that your policeman knows the narrative and can help to inform the rest of your company. There are many other steps and custom processes to branding yourself but these are a good start.
It may seem daunting but with proper planning and a little legwork and research your brand can translate its message into a great story and not risk losing the battle.
Published on November 1, 2007
in branding.
Dictionary.com has six different definitions for the term brand and branding. Some of them reference a sword (ie. excalibur); others recall the term in the context of marking ownership of livestock. All seem to be slightly askew for the term branding as it relates to marketing and advertising. Branding has both holistic and physical properties and creates confusion for marketers who hastily try to build brands using poor core values. Brand building is a process which takes time, and must be done with exact strategic goals set in motion long before the brand is born.
Contagious is something less confusing to define but no easier to implement. It is defined this way on dictionary.com:
tending to spread from person to person: contagious laughter.
Brands typically hope to incorporate some degree of contagiousness that embody? its essence in order to spread the ideas centered at its core. That is where the name of this blog comes from. BRAND + conTAGIOUS = brandtagious. And it is my sincere hope as I embark on this journey that I learn and experiment with ideas and thoughts that relateto branding development, strategy and marketing.
Recent Comments