A Short Guide to Organizing a Direct Advertising Campaign
16 June 2010
Instead of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for advertising in a particular unproven market, many businesspeople go another route and employ a tactic called direct advertising. In simple terms, direct advertising is a
marketing strategy that streamlines your businesss marketing efforts by going directly to the customers. Regular advertising means youll gain exposure over a large audience and folks within your niche will hopefully seek you out. Direct advertising takes the guess work out of it and enables you to cater directly to your potential customers. Its cheaper and far more effective, especially for Internet businesses.
How to Advertise DirectlyDirect MailSmall or large businesses can benefit greatly from direct mail. Not only can you target recipients of your marketing, but youll also be able to protect against a large response. Direct mail is extremely cost-effective, fast, and it allows you a platform for unlimited advertising.
When youre advertising via email, you wont have to worry about purchasing ad space and using any keywords that might jeopardize the context of your message. Youll still want to be short and concise in order to gain a potential customers attention, but youll have much more freedom in directing them to your business. One of the benefits in direct mail is, realistically, youll never run out of prospects. As long as you can find a mailing list, you will always have someone to market to. The trick in this is, of course, preparing a customer-friendly page. The pieces for this mailing campaign are simple. Youll need a mass mailer, an auto responder, and some creativity for your actual ad page. Then its all about working up your ad strategy, creating a response, entertaining the addresses from your mailing list, and sending out your ads to countless potential customers.
CouponingIf youre operating an offline business, then printing coupons is a good way to go for direct advertising. Although, the computer will still come in handy here if you have any design skills, then use them to print attractive coupons and/or fliers. How you distribute these items is up to you. You can put them under car windshields, go door-to-door, make agreements with store owners to leave a stack on the counter, and even hand them out to people at public venues. This method isnt as direct in the sense that youre reaching potential customers, but it is a way to directly advertise to the public at large. Thats well worth the effort. Even a 5% response would equal a huge return on the investment.
Other, more expensive methodsTelevision/broadcast marketing and telemarketing are also considered to be direct advertising methods. However, these tactics are much more expensive than the two above-mentioned methods. In business, its all about keeping your costs low and maximizing your profits. If you can follow these two methods and earn a big response, then you should be able to solidify your business and wont have to explore more expensive methods of advertising.
