To really learn about direct marketing and how you can use it to better your business you should first understand what direct marketing is.

According to Wikipedia, direct marketing is defined as “a sub discipline of marketing focused to driving purchases that can be attributed to a specific call to action”. This marketing discipline can include and medium that allows you to communicate directly with customers. Some examples of direct marketing include, direct mail, email, newspaper, radio, television, and of course the internet.

The main focus of any direct marketing strategy is to increase the number of customers that respond to your marketing campaign or “response rate” while also trying to decrease the cost of advertising. Increasing customer response to your advertising will accomplish two very important things. One, increase the number of sales leads generated by advertising, and two, further establish business name recognition. (more…)

It’s the ‘human’ touch to direct marketing that keeps The Cobra Group a class apart from peer companies, in all respects.

Human Commercialâ„¢ – a marketing methodology that Cobra Group has developed over the course of years has been making things tick wonderfully for the company, its many clients and its customers too. Working on an organisational level, the company deals with thousands of customers every day in different parts of the world. From the initial days itself, the prime focus has been on making things work directly with the customers, on a face-to-face level. And the Human Commercialâ„¢ method also helped the company and its clients in doing away with dependence on the inanimate, conventional media for advertising products and services.

The personal interaction that Cobra representatives establish with the customers helps them get a clear idea of the needs and requirements of each and every individual customer and then plan the marketing move accordingly. Every presentation is made to the customer in the form of the Human Commercialâ„¢ and this human touch to marketing translates into effective and quality-driven customer acquisition for the clients.

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It’s an emerging debate that looks set to become more widespread in the future – which direct marketing method is most effective: traditional direct mail campaigns, or new generation email marketing?

Direct mail is sent to businesses and consumers every day and is used by a very wide range of organisations and industries. A mailing in the post, often accompanied by a letter, has become a proven and accepted way of targeting your audience, with consistent conversion rates of about 1-5%. However in recent years direct mail has attracted criticism over the environmental impact it can have, and the annoyance caused by misdirected mailings.

Email marketing using opt in data is less widely used at the moment, but is growing more rapidly in popularity than almost any other direct marketing tool. A growing range of good quality opt in, and in some cases double opt in lists are becoming available, as are a wide range of email broadcast services. But this new marketing medium has already been tainted by abuse and association with the practice of spamming or junk mailing.

So what are the relative merits of each of these contrasting direct marketing methods? (more…)

Every once in awhile a light bulb goes off in someone’s head and a new marketing concept is born. One of the more recent “opportunistic” marketing methods is marketing to you when you have no choice.

Imagine yourself in a very small metal room with 10 other people. The doors close and you have no way of escaping this room for a minute or two. While locked in with these strangers you are exposed to various commercials for different products appearing on a video screen right in front of you. The doors finally open, and you are allowed to leave.

Sound like a nightmare (or Marketing Executive’s dream, perhaps)? Well, it’s actually reality; it’s your experience if you use an elevator in any one of a few hundred buildings across the United States.

Captivate Network has installed over 3,000 flat-panel video monitors in elevators across the country. Business professionals use these elevators every day and while in that big metal box with nothing to do, a video screen flashes to life and sales pitches fill the room. After all, what are they going to do? Haul up 60 flights of stairs? Likely not. (more…)

Ask the ListGuy

“What are the most common Direct Mail Mistakes and how can I try to Avoid them?”

Successful direct mail doesn’t depend on fancy, four-color design or “creative” copy.

Mistake No. 1: Not renting the right mail/email list for you.

Do you know what the most important part of your direct mail campaign is? It is the mailing list. No matter how beautiful your graphic design is, no matter how slick your ad copy is, if you mail to the wrong mailing list, your mailing is doomed to failure. Remember, a mailing list is not just a means to reach your prospects, it IS your prospects!

The best list available to you is your “house” list—your list of customers and prospects who previously bought from you or responded to your marketing efforts. (more…)

You’ve started the day with a sales rally and the pep talk of your life. All of your agents have come in for the start of an important new campaign. They have reviewed the direct mail piece your provider sent earlier in the week. They’re educated on the products. They’ve never been more ready to sell. Every thing and every person is in place.

And the phones are silent.

It’s a mortgage broker’s nightmare. You invest in direct mail marketing, and the responses don’t come in when you expect they will. Experience tells you that once the letters are mailed, you have no way of predicting when they’ll arrive in mailboxes, much less where they’re stuck at this moment. The success of your campaign is at the mercy of a system that appears to send mail through a time warp with variable results.

Lucky for you, there’s actually nothing so mysterious about the U.S. Postal Service. It works as a well-oiled machine that efficiently delivers billions of pieces of mail each year. The system tracks the location of each piece of mail from the time it is dropped by the sender until it lands in the local mail carrier’s hands on the way to its final destination. Working with a direct mail provider who understands these systems and puts them to work for you can help prepare you for the times the phones actually start ringing. And when you are prepared, you will have the ability to maximize your profits. (more…)

Great Mailing Lists

When done correctly, direct mail is one of the most effective marketing tools available to small businesses, regardless of industry. Unfortunately, many first-time mailers–and even some experienced ones–overlook some of the basic “rules” for creating an effective direct mail campaign. Here are some proven thoughts to heed when planning your next mailing.

The success of your campaign relies on the following:

1. The accuracy of your mailing list

2. The perceived quality of your offer

3. The appeal of your mail piece .

Many experts speak of the 40-40-20 rule. It states that the mailing list makes up 40% of the success of a mailing, the offer makes up another 40% and the package itself (paper, design, copy) is responsible for the remaining 20%. (more…)

Great Mailing Lists

Listguy:

If you asked people if they like to get “junk mail”, most people would say “no”. But don’t worry – people really don’t hate direct mail. $250,000,000,000 worth of goods and services are sold through direct mail each year in the US alone. And the total continues to grow. According to the Direct Marketing Association, it is growing at 8.6% a year, several times more than the growth rate of the economy. And it’s not just a few people. Last year over half of all American adults ordered something through direct mail. (more…)

Many small businesses are stuck with the problem of needing to advertise in order to bring in more clients, but not being able to afford to do so until they’ve actually acquired these new clients. This doesn’t paint a very nice scenario, but the good news is that it’s easier to fix than you may realize. While you may not have the budget to launch a television or billboard campaign, you probably do have the budget to launch a fairly powerful direct mail campaign. To get the best results from your direct mail campaign, you’ll need to make sure that it meets certain criteria.
It has to stand out. Most people, especially business owners, get a lot of direct mail. If yours looks just like everyone else’s it’s going to get tossed right into the trash along with the rest. Make sure that yours stands out by using an unusual size, shape and design. To do this, you’re going to have to take a look at the direct mail that your competitors are sending out, but it won’t hurt to look at direct mail from companies outside your industry too remember, even though you aren’t directly competing with them, your marketing materials are competing with theirs for the attention of your prospect.
It has to present the right message. Your message should be clear, concise, and contain a call to action. Don’t just tell your prospects that you are the best mortgage broker in town tell them to call or stop by your office. The goal of your direct mail should be to get their attention and cause them to take some action so that you can then convert them into a client. (more…)

Over the years, Rolex came out with the following new Daytona models, each showing some technological improvements over the previous models in some way or another:

Model 6262 & 6264: In 1965, model 6262 replaced the model 6239, while the model 6464 replaced the model 6241. These models were an improvement over the earlier versions as they utilized a new Valjoux 727 movement.

Model 6240: It was a completely new model, also launched in 1965. Its unique feature was its screw down waterproof pushers making it waterproof to a level of 165 feet. It was also the first Rolex Daytona watches that had “Oyster” engraved on its dial.

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