ROC Weekly Marketing Minute
Connecting With Your Audience and Eliciting a Response Through Direct Marketing
Direct marketing is a method of connecting with your alumni and leads by sending a message straight to them. This strategy is an effective way to send a targeted message to a specific segment of your audience and encourage them to take an action.
Methods of direct marketing
There are a number of different methods you can use to launch a direct marketing campaign, including:
Text messages
Email
Direct mail
Chatbots
Event marketing
Telemarketing
Targeted social media ads
Benefits of direct marketing
Here is a list of benefits you may experience from direct marketing:
Optimize budget: You can make the most of your budget by targeting an audience that has already expressed interest in your facility. It can help you set more realistic goals, make an impact, and increase clients. Many of the methods used are also cost efficient.
Increase opportunity to analyze results: The nature of direct marketing allows you to better track and analyze your efforts, and adjust them as necessary to increase effectiveness.
Build and maintain relationships: This approach allows you to contact your alumni and prospective clients directly, to help keep you top of mind and offer value. This helps you learn more about their thought process and develop an ongoing relationship with them. You can use the information you gain to inspire future projects or new campaigns.
Distribute shareable information: Direct marketing campaigns are tailored to your audience, so they are likely to resonate with the information and share it with others who can benefit from your services.
Inform other marketing strategies: The information you gain from a direct marketing campaign can help inform all other marketing efforts. You can identify what works, what doesn’t, and where your best opportunities exist.
How to create a direct marketing campaign
Here is a list of steps you can take to create a direct marketing campaign:
1. Review your contacts
Determine who you wish to contact and target for your direct marketing campaign. Assess your contact list and segment it as necessary. You can also use the leads you have generated from an inbound marketing campaign, or choose to target people on social media.
2. Create the content
When creating your content, be sure to create each aspect strategically. For instance, if you choose to run a direct marketing campaign via email, ensure the message, subject line, images, and time you plan to send it are all optimized. Be direct in your messaging; encourage your audience to take an action by being straightforward about your request and including a clear CTA.
3. Enable tracking
Most methods of direct marketing offer a way to track your success. Ensure analytics are enabled for the method you choose so that you can accurately track your campaign.
4. Conduct a test
You can create an A/B test on a small group to assess which of your messages performs the best. Be sure to only adjust small elements at a time to ensure you are evaluating your options correctly.
5. Launch the campaign
Once you have determined the version of your content that performs the best and determined the best day and time to send it, you can launch your campaign.
6. Assess the results
Give your campaign some time before you make conclusions about it. You can assess your analytics and look for measures such as bounce rate, open rate, engagement rate, and action on your CTAs. You can then use this information to inform your next campaign to continually improve your process.
Principles of direct marketing
To help you learn more about the best way to create a direct marketing campaign, here are a few principles to keep in mind:
Focused: Direct marketing campaigns focus on a specific segment of your audience. All aspects of a campaign are tailored to this segment.
Communicative: As the campaign is focused, you can speak to your recipient directly, rather than create a generalized mass marketing message. Be sure to communicate what you want them to do.
Influential: Direct marketing campaigns aim to convince your recipients to take an action. Outline clear goals for your campaign and focus on achieving that goal with every step.
Measurable: One of the main purposes of direct marketing it to measure your success to inform your future campaigns. Ensure all the important metrics of your campaign are trackable to help refine your approach.
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