The Institute of Direct Marketing defines direct marketing as; the planned recording, analysis and tracking of customer behaviour to develop relational marketing strategies.
Direct Marketing covers a range of promotional activities the most common being; mail order catalogues, telemarketing, magazine inserts, direct mail and e-commerce.
In order to reach your target market you must ensure that you have a valuable Direct Marketing Database. This database should consist of information relating to past, current and potential customers. In order for your database to be effective, it should be managed properly and maintained regularly. Properly managing your database can enable you to focus on your best perspective customers and help you to inform them of new products and services, as well as assisting you to sell cross-related products.
How to create your Direct Marketing Database
1) The easiest way to start compiling your database is to use information your business holds on existing customers. Information to collect could include:
a. Customer Profile; names, ages, location, household income, interests, occupations and family situation
b. Details of orders; products/services purchases
c. Average spend of customer
d. Time/date of order, frequency of purchase
e. Customer comments/enquiries
f. Usage of discount/offer codes
g. Information on how the customer found your business
2) It is possible to buy databases of potential customers from other sources, this could include businesses selling to a similar demographic or mailing list owners or brokers.
Direct Marketing is widely considered to be the most influential medium to achieve a positive customer response. The application of Direct Marketing can enable your business to focus on the relevant audience, delivering a greater impact, whilst often applying data already held by your business.
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