Direct Marketing
Direct Marketing“Anything that’s got my name on it, I open, because you never know
what it will be,” comments one focus group participant in a recent study of
direct mail trends commissioned by the Graphic Arts Marketing Information
Service (GAMIS) of PIA.
In the late 1800s, Richard W. Sears, a railroad clerk in North Redmond, Minnesota, acquired an abandoned case of pocket watches. Using his list of other railroad clerks throughout the Midwest, he marketed his watches with great success. Sears recognized immediately that an entrepreneur with a list of accurate names and addresses, and a stock of quality merchandise, no longer needed a store. He only needed a good message delivery vehicle and first-rate customer service. And so was born an American institution, one of the first and most successful direct marketing stories of all time: Sears Roebuck. The business grew to be the largest direct mail order company in the world. It wasn’t until 1931 that its retail store sales surpassed mail order sales. And many, many more mail order business success stories followed. In fact, because distances between suppliers and consumers throughout the newly forming territories were so vast, and the increasing variety of merchandise being produced was in such demand, mail order opportunities seemed endless. A robust network of railroads connected countless small towns and cities, many without stores. And each community, no matter how small, was served by the U.S. Postal Service, a system established by the farsighted authors of the Constitution of the United States in 1787 to help knit the young nation together.
“Today, the U.S. boasts a $1.5 trillion market for direct marketers. This is without a doubt the largest and richest single market in the world and growing at an unprecedented 8.6% per year. With over 10,000 different catalogs alone being mailed in the U.S., there is a niche for every player and every project and service.” Technology and innovation have improved, but the principles fostered by Sears have remained intact.
Direct-mail Marketing
Though the tried and true principles have remained the same, direct mail has improved exponentially in appearance and the way in which data is collected over these past years through vast technological advances. Direct mail is very appealing because unlike any other form of marketing, it offers measurability. Direct mail is an expensive marketing tool because it is incredibly targeted and therefore has a higher success rate. The basis for winning direct marketing is targeting the right people with the right offer in a compelling way that generates response. The goal of direct mail is to generate an immediate measurable response. That’s why even though direct response costs, more, done effectively it’s a good investment. Direct response advertising results show you what does and doesn’t work. General and image advertising can’t attribute specific sales to specific advertising efforts while direct response does.
Direct Marketing – Door-to-Door
This form of retailing originated several centuries ago and has mushroomed into a $9...
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