What is direct marketing?

Direct marketing is one of the sales methods that use direct marketing media without the presence of a marketing intermediary in the activities of buying and selling and bargaining a product or service offered.

 

What is direct marketing?

Direct marketing will generate several responses from targeted consumer targets, among them are:

Inquiry: a response from the target consumer by providing important information to make observations and or experiments to find a solution to a problem.

• Support: response in the form of support provided by the target consumer to the products and services offered. This can also be an appreciation from consumers for the direct marketing process that we apply.
• Purchase: response from consumers who are interested in the product offered and then make a purchase.

Direct marketing is different from personal branding, sales promotion, and public relations. This direct marketing / direct marketing activity is done without intermediaries so that it will cut the cost of promotion and can generate greater profits.

Understanding direct marketing according to experts

Some experts in economics and marketing have briefly explained what D.M is. Here is an explanation of what D.M is according to experts:

• Marketing Strategy

The meaning of D.M is a marketing system that uses direct channels to reach consumers and deliver goods/services to consumers without intermediaries. To generate measurable responses and/or transactions at a location.

• Principle of Advertising

The notion of D.M is a way of marketing where companies want to communicate directly with consumers. Direct communication strategies are considered more effective because they can interact, obtain a database that can trigger marketing communications using various media to encourage consumer response.

 

•  Principles of Marketing

The notion of D.M is a marketing system that uses various advertising media to interact directly with the target consumer. Usually, this interaction is done by phone, email, or meet directly with the consumer to get a direct response.

Common Forms of direct marketing

Several forms of direct marketing can be done according to some expert;

Personal Selling

• Telemarketing
• Direct Mail
• Catalog Marketing
• Direct Response
• Online Marketing
• Television Marketing
• Kiosk Marketing

 

In practice, D.M is heavily influenced by various media, especially technological developments. Some things that affect the direct marketing process include:

Products that are already known by the target consumer before appearing in promotional media

• The target market is specific and has a proximity to the product. This can be obtained when segmenting consumer targets.
• How to convey information related to the marketed product

Some important components in D.M that must be considered from the beginning are:

• Objective, the purpose of the D.M campaign
• Media used to reach target consumers
• Creative, an exciting way to deliver marketing messages to consumers
• Database, information about the target audience that can be used to make marketing decisions
• Fulfillment, campaign implementation, from preparation to delivery.

Examples of Direct Marketing or Direct Marketing

 

• Personal Selling

Personal selling is an example of D.M where the process of marketing a product is done directly face to face with potential buyers. In general, marketing management will explore the places that will be targeted to Their products.

Catalog Marketing

Catalog marketing is a type of marketing done by sending catalogs to several different markets and targets that are in different places.

Telemarketing

Telemarketing is one of the product marketing activities by utilizing a telephone or other voice communication media in promoting their products. After obtaining approval, the next step is to have a meeting.

This type of D.M provides great opportunities because it uses visual communication media even if not face to face. Before embarking on this strategy, you need to do some market research to implement it properly.

Online Marketing

Online Marketing includes D.M because it is done by promoting using social media by directly offering products or promos created. For example, using Facebook Ads or AdWords will certainly provide great product marketing potential. The advantage of D.M online marketing is that it can provide full service as well as wide reach to the corners of the world.

Kiosk Marketing 

Kiosk Marketing is a type of product marketing that is based on online and also modern by doing a customer receiving machine from their store. Currently, several companies have designed “customer order receiving machines”.

The machine is placed in several stores that allow customers to determine the order on the machine and also customers can choose the product, type, color, and motif they want.

Direct Mail Marketing

Is a type of business product promotion by providing some interesting messages, offers, product information and brochures to someone or a market that is outside the scope of your business.

That is an explanation of the meaning and examples of direct marketing that you can try to introduce and produce the business products you are running. Hopefully, this article on the meaning and examples of direct marketing can be useful to you.

If you have mastered marketing strategies, you also need to understand how to manage finances. As a business owner, you need to have a good financial record so that your business finances are well monitored.

Benefits and Purposes of Direct Marketing

In general, the goal of D.M is to market products/services to target consumers with less marketing costs. Direct marketing benefits all the people involved in it, namely product owners, sellers, and consumers.

 

• For Sellers

Enables testing of marketing media and alternative messaging to find the most effective and economical method Can create offers and strategies that are difficult for competitors to emulate ease in measuring responses to promotions and knowing the most effective types of promotions. D.M can be arranged to reach potential buyers at the right time and can tailor and customize messages to the needs of the target group.

For Consumers of Retail Products

Shopping activities become easier and time-saving because they can be done at home and consumers have the freedom to choose the goods according to their needs and can see the price through the catalog or on the website also customers can purchase items for themselves or others

• For Consumers of Industrial Products

Consumers can learn about the products/services offered more carefully, so it will save more time because they do not need to meet with entrepreneurs for an explanation of the products sold.

NOTE: in this article D.M means Direct Marketing