What is Direct Marketing? What Does It Do?

 Different types of marketing are essentially geared towards one goal: reaching the target audience and making a profit. Direct marketing, which deals with different methods towards this goal, adopts a strategy that enables reaching the target audience in a short time. So what exactly does direct marketing mean, why is it necessary, and with what applications does it reach the consumer?

 

Why Use Direct Marketing?

At a time when modern marketing understanding is developing, you might think that direct marketing is a bit outdated. But today's dominant types of marketing mainly market products and services by adopting features of direct marketing. Direct marketing achieves the desired goals by trying methods that will reach the consumer and target audience directly. In other words, direct marketing reaches the target audience through direct communication.

 

As with other types of marketing, communication is everything in direct marketing. Marketing steps that encourage purchasing are applied in line with the target audience and customer communication. Direct marketing methods are also activated to promote sales and find potential customers.

 

Direct marketing is a method their businesses use; However, not every business is bound to this marketing approach. Because direct marketing is a top marketing title and it is often not necessary to apply every method. For example; kioks, which is one of the direct marketing applications, is one of the ways to reach the consumer without involving the middleman; however, not every business needs to offer such a service. Therefore, when it comes to marketing strategy, it is not right to act only on direct marketing. However, it should not be overlooked that direct marketing provides a source for other types of marketing with the information and analyzes it enables.

 

The main feature of direct marketing is that there is a process from the producer to the consumer without intermediaries and suppliers. In other words, the marketing approach here applies the form of mutual communication. The producer produces a product or service and these goods reach the consumer through direct marketing practices. Direct marketing, which provides services to consumers without the use of intermediaries, is still used today with lower cost and methods that will reach the target audience directly. Direct marketing applications also provide useful techniques, enabling the target audience to recognize products or services.

 

What are Direct Marketing Applications?

Direct marketing methods are focused on sustainable communication and creating a reaction in the consumer. Direct marketing, which wants to influence the purchasing preferences of its customers by creating a reaction, also benefits from today's dominant marketing methods. For example, the internet, which fits comfortably into most types of marketing. Again, with internet marketing, the marketing method applied through the most used mobile devices is also a part of direct marketing.

 

Direct marketing applications reach consumers in a number of ways, depending on both traditional and modern marketing understanding. We can list the generally used applications as follows:

 

Catalogs and Brochures, Flyers

Mail Shipments

Electronic Shopping and E-commerce

Fax Posts

SMS and E-Mail- E-Mail Marketing

Telemarketing

Kiosks

Face to Face Meeting and Marketing

Online Advertising

The above applications are used to get instant response and initiate mutual communication. As a result of mutual communication, it is aimed that the consumer buys the product and then turns into a customer. For example, let's take telemarketing, which is often used in direct marketing.

 

Through telemarketing, customers and potential customers are reached in accordance with the personalized database. Thus, direct communication begins and the reaction of the target audience is learned. Again, although not used much nowadays, SMS and e-mail notifications, which are useful in some cases, are also a way of gaining customers. All these applications are for the target audience to reach the product or service much more easily by creating mutual communication and interaction.

 

Direct Marketing Applications

 

At the same time, these marketing applications are adaptable to digital marketing and internet marketing in general. Today's e-commerce brands use direct marketing methods to sell products on the one hand and market them on the other. For example, they talk about new products and opportunities via e-mail notifications, and they meet directly with consumers using experiential marketing. As a result, direct marketing applications do not delay the desired results too much, as they are adaptable to other types of marketing.

 

Which Direct Marketing Method Should Be Used?

Using all the methods of one type of marketing does not mean high profits and customer acquisition. Because every method has a logical purpose and need that applies to its application. It becomes clear which method will be used in accordance with these needs. In addition, the most decisive factor here is the characteristics of the target audience and the budget allocated by the business.

 

The discovery of the target audience is also important in direct marketing applications. The target audience is the main source of information and data that enables marketing. Any information reaching the target audience; It also provides a planning as to which method will be used and why. Therefore, which of the direct marketing methods will be used determines the target audience, budget and short and long term goals of the business. Among the methods that make direct marketing a frequently used type of marketing; e-mail marketing, telemarketing and catalog notifications also stand out by offering useful applications.

 

Advantages of Direct Marketing

We talked about what direct marketing applications are and what they are about. Let's take a look at the advantages of direct marketing.

 

The direct marketing approach, first of all, has a more affordable system in terms of cost. When we look at the methods used, we cannot talk about a high-cost budget such as digital marketing or influencer marketing. It prefers to increase the budget when it is added to a method such as direct marketing and internet marketing to a versatile marketing approach. Therefore, the cost varies somewhat depending on the targeted position and the characteristics of the target audience.

 

Another prominent advantage of direct marketing is that it opens the door to a personalized audience analysis. To implement direct marketing, you must first have information and data about the target audience. As a result of target audience analysis and measurement, it is possible to reach the consumer with a personalized marketing approach. Accompanied by measurable results, which consumer or how to reach the customer is revealed. In addition, depending on this method, the awareness of the consumer about the brand or business is increased with personalized messages and notifications.

 

Direct Marketing Advantages

 

Another advantage of this type of marketing is that it helps to reach old customers as well as potential customers. It also provides useful data when creating a direct marketing method, customer loyalty program and strategy. It activates different applications on how to reach old customers and potential customers directly. That is, it contacts the old customer to become a customer of the business or brand again and provides information about sales opportunities.

 

In general, we can say the following about the advantages of direct marketing:

 

It provides measurable results for specific targets and provides useful audience segmentation with these results.

It makes the consumer feel special by offering personalized messages.

Generates analysis information and data for strategies and plans at the sales stage.

It applies telemarketing methods that allow instant sales.

It takes much less time than other types of marketing and the application proceeds first.

It determines the overall marketing strategy of the call center and customer service line that supports internet marketing.

The results obtained reach the enterprise immediately and the information collected for the audit phase is reported.

It provides instant feedback and evaluation of results by providing a physical product or service experience.

We answered the questions of what is direct marketing and why is it important. Since the field of marketing progresses in parallel with today's developments, direct marketing will continue to be used as one of the dominant marketing types with its adaptable features.