What is direct marketing?

Direct marketing, including email campaigns, text marketing and leafleting, are all excellent ways to promote your small business.

Direct marketing is about making direct contact with existing and potential customers to promote your products or services. Unlike advertising, direct marketing campaigns allow you to target particular people with a personalised message.

Direct marketing can be a cost-effective way to generate sales, so it’s ideal for small businesses. Direct marketing methods include mailings, leaflets, email, phone calls and text messaging as well as direct messaging on social media.

Why use direct marketing?

Direct marketing allows you to generate a response from targeted customers. A direct marketing campaign with a clear call to action can help you boost your sales, increase customer loyalty, recapture old customers and generate new business.

Direct marketing can be evaluated and measured precisely. For example, you can send out test marketing emails directing customers to specific landing pages on your website. You can analyse results to see which email was most successful.

Whether you are targeting business customers or consumers, direct marketing can deliver results. Choosing the right communication method is vital. Individuals will prefer different ways of contact, so make sure you take account of their preferences.

How to create a direct marketing campaign

Your database is at the heart of any good direct marketing strategy . It must be up to date and accurate. Check your mailing list regularly - remove duplicate entries, correct any mistakes and always delete the names of people and businesses who have asked to be removed. It is your responsibility to check that your direct marketing activities are within the law and comply with GDPR .

The information you hold on your database is marketing gold dust. It can tell you about your customers' buying habits and reveal other useful information such as age, gender and location. You can use this data to divide your customers and prospects into smaller groups and target them with special messages. You can build a profile of your best customers using a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) and actively seek new contacts matching that description.

Measuring the results of direct marketing

With any direct marketing campaign, you can calculate a break-even point - the number of sales you need to make to cover the cost of the marketing. In addition, you can work out the cost per response and the return on investment. This analysis will enable you to tweak your campaigns in order to improve your results.