Direct Marketing

By Wyatt Galt, 22 Jan 22:32

First of all, let’s define direct marketing. It is selling a product or service directly to the customer without an intermediary such as a retail store or distributor.

When you sell your product or service directly to your customers via your website, you are a direct marketer. For this reason, you need to learn about direct marketing in general and then apply many of those lessons to your online business.

The winning sales proposition
One of the unique features of direct marketing is that your efforts may not directly relate to how successful you are. Sounds strange doesn’t it? If you have a winning sales proposition, customers will take notice, you will make sales. The winning sales proposition is also referred to as the unique sales proposition or competitive advantage or your product or service.

Direct marketing is a mindset you need to obtain. This mindset will make you money, increase your sales, make you more customer service oriented and increase your profits dramatically. Look for what your customers want and adapt your product or service to those needs.

The place to start to obtain this mindset is to understand that you, as the master direct marketer that you are about to become, need to solve a problem. What are their problems? You need to identify them before you can solve them. You need to make it easy for them and do it fast.

Your winning sales proposition needs to speak to those problems, to those needs. Many great marketers use the winning sales proposition in the form of a “tag line”. A tag line is the little statement often placed underneath the product in an ad. “Things go better with Coke”.

How-To create your own winning sales proposition:
Identify a problem the vast majority of your target customer’s have.
-Solve that problem.
-Solve it for them fast.
-Make it easy for people to put your solution to use.

Take a moment and think of your customers. What are their problems, desires and needs? How are your products going to solve those problems? How quickly can you do it? How easy is it? Rethink your advertising through this filter.

In this fast paced Internet age, people have the attention span of a gnat. They want everything fast, they want it easy. Solving a problem, whether it is one of money, better looks, saving time, or whatever else there may be on the minds of the buying public, needs to be identified in your marketing strategy and communicated quickly.

The failing of many companies, particularly small business entrepreneurs, is that they either do not solve a problem at all or they solve a problem of a very narrow audience. When you rethink your product or service ask yourself how wide an audience is my solution appealing to.

Also, many marketers think their product is selling for reason X when in fact; most of their customers were buying it for reason Y. This is not uncommon. A simple way to determine what is really going on here is to poll your customers. Call a sample of them on the phone and ask why they purchased your product. What you will learn will help you tailor your advertising to appeal to those desires.

After you determine the primary problem you are solving for your customers, you must now add in the element of time. Try to solve that problem fast and communicate that time frame in your ads. How many ads have you seen that say “She lost 12 pounds in 3 –1/2 weeks”?

Problem = too much weight.

Solution = she used XYZ diet program and lost so much weight in this short amount of time, i.e. she lost it fast.

People can identify with it and they place themselves in the situation by visualizing that they can do it too. This is simple yet powerful.

Problem - Solution – Time
So much of direct marketing is common sense but that vast majority of business people are so caught up in the day-to-day operations that they do not take the time to sit down and think these simple concepts through and apply them to the business they have invested so much into. Try to learn HOW people think and appeal to that way of thinking.

People do not want to work very hard when it comes to buying. So much is spontaneity. People want it to be easy. Make it easy for them. Tell them how easy it is to use the product or service and order the product or service. Easy solutions to very common problems that appeal to a wide audience is a formula for huge success. However you are selling, whether be in traditional media such as TV, newspaper, radio, etc. this is time-tested truth. It applies to Internet marketing as well. People want to know what problem is being solved, that the solution is fast and easy and they can get it now.

When you break down your business into these simple components you are reengineering your thinking to create a foundation for being successful.

Think about a product that you ordered via direct marketing. It could be from a mail order catalog, or an infomercial, or from the Internet. Did it solve a problem for you? If so, what? Was it easy to order?

In the past decade home shopping networks have become very large businesses. They communicate via television directly to you. The most effective ads or products appeal to a need you may not even know you have until you watch them or they offer a solution to a problem you can identify with. Listen to these ads and how much they emphasize how easy it is to order and that you will have this “solution” quickly, “call now” etc. This is the time tested marketing formula kind of stuff that you need to understand as a professional marketer.

Self Help is a big industry, we all know this right? People want to be smarter, thinner, look better, feel better, jump higher, run faster, eat better, know more etc. There is always the next big thing. The newest diet book, formula for success, breakthrough technology on and on. I am not intending to criticize here but am trying to point out that the reason these things are so successful is that the market demands new and better solutions to age old problems all the time. This is a constant.

A wide market has a problem. The marketer communicates a solution and lets the potential customers know in simple terms it is easy and fast to implement. Simple, yes?

Problem - Solution – Time - Easy
Save them money. Save them time. Make them feel better. Make them look better. Make them smarter. This is the society we live in. How does your business fit into this marketing philosophy? Do not try to force your product to the market. Look at the market and see how you fit in and adapt your product or service from that viewpoint.

When you watch TV and see a commercial, put it to the test. Are they presenting you with a compelling offer or are they just advertising a brand that instills no emotion in you?

Stop reading for a moment and think about what you just learned. Say it out loud. Did you highlight anything? Did you take notes? If not, please consider reading the above again so it sinks in. Your customers may not even think this consciously but they do ask this question constantly as they evaluate the constant flow of data coming at them from TV, the radio, in print and on the net:

What’s in it for me?
If you do not answer this right up front you are history. Click, next … etc.

Branding and Emotion
We will take a little detour here to touch on an important distinction. Many great books have been written about branding, creating a brand and the like. What is a brand? A brand in terms of commercialism.

Well ok, Amazon is selling a ton of books and breaking eCommerce records. Are they a brand? Does the thought of Amazon instill an emotional response in you?

Think of a cowboy on a horse riding into a beautiful sunset, against the backdrop of the Grand Canyon, strong and free … a true American scene. What is this an ad for?

Why are we comparing these? What emotion is instilled by these brands? Amazon: not much emotion. It is a catalog site. Like no emotion? Marlboro. A man on a horse. A macho guy, A hero. I am that guy in my dreams etc.

I am not promoting cigarettes or smoking. The point is that the Marlboro brand is so strong that they do not even have to use the name of the product and you know what it is. They are saying to you that if you smoke Marlboro cigarettes you will be strong and free and look like this guy too. And women will love you for it because women love the strong silent cowboy type etc. etc. They are instilling emotion into their branding strategy and it has worked like a charm for decades and made billions.

The lesson here is to think deeper. Look beyond great advertising to see what works and why. I am trying to get you to think differently.

Do you see the difference? The cigarette marketing executives are trying to brainwash us by connecting who we might want to be in our perfect world or in our dreams … to their stupid product. And you know what? It works. Does Amazon make you feel like someone else? No. They can still be successful, granted. But which is a true brand?

“Things go better with Coke.” “It’s Miller time.”

Here’s to the drill. When you think about solving a problem for your customers in your winning sales proposition, if you can do it with emotion, if you can connect your solution with emotion, you have created a very powerful message. This is where sales explode. This is the land of branding. This is marketing nirvana.

One of the most powerful and effective methods of emotional branding deals with what? … Come on you know … ok I will whisper it.

sex

Oh that? Yes you bet. Nothing better in advertising. Think about it. Think of the ads. You buy this product and put in on or in you or whatever and you will get … this gorgeous babe or this hunk of a man and you will then get to take them home and …. Well you know the rest.

A large percentage of advertising says this: Buy this and you will have more sex. They could be selling motor oil. Motor oil? Absolutely. How many car ads have beautiful people in them taunting you, teasing you, seducing you? You buy this car and she comes with it.

Years ago they outlawed subliminal advertising. This type of advertising used in magazines where a company selling liquor, for example, would write the word sex in the ice cubes. You would not see it consciously but your subconscious would see it and it would connect that brand of booze to sex and therefore you want it. Sneaky huh? You bet. It was so powerful and sneaky it is now against the law.

Lesson? Speak to the emotions of your buyers and you will create more powerful ads. Think for a moment what emotions your product of service can appeal to.

Test Marketing
In direct marketing, inclusive of online marketing, it is best to find a market and bring a product to that market versus the other way around. If you are contemplating selling a new product or a variation on an existing product or service, test it first. Determine if there is a market for the product and make your adjusts early before spending lots of time, energy and money.

Once you have determined the market desires your offer, you can roll it out with a larger marketing campaign. The Internet offers you an inexpensive but powerful proving ground to test and test again. We will go into more detail in other chapters.

People often go through a great deal of work and months of time prior to learning that there is not much of a market for their product. One way to test is to run inexpensive classified ads and track them. Take your idea to market and test it first.

LTV = Life Time Value (of your customer)
Once you have a customer, you have invested time and money to obtain him or her. Now you need to keep selling and servicing that customer. The amount of sales you make to that single customer over the life of your relationship with that customer is the their life time value to you. The LTV. You enhance the LTV by back ending, or selling more quality products and services related to the first product that they purchased from you. This sounds so fundamental and it is but it is one of the most overlooked activities for small business.

How-To increase LTV:

-Inserts in packages
-Email campaigns that we will teach you how to do
-Auto responders
-Newsletters
-Telemarketing
-Channel Partners that sell to your list

Once they are your customers you need to capitalize on that investment for as long as you possible can.

The Mindset of Creating Effective Advertisements
What features does your product or service have? You could probably make a long list right now. What benefits does your product have?

What are you offering your potential customer? If you cannot answer that question it is very hard to right an effective ad. Do not feel bad, many ads do not answer that question either. Many of these ineffective ads are on TV and companies pay Madison Avenue firms millions to make them and run them and then wonder why their product is not doing well. In many cases these ads have no real message whatsoever.

Ad agencies like flash, and art and color and sound and often miss the mark in the process. Have you ever seen and ad on TV and turned to your friend or spouse and said, “What the heck was that an ad for”.

I do this all the time. To borrow an analysis of advertising by another direct marketer (who probably borrowed this analogy from someone else) there are four basic types of ads:

-Left Brain
-Right Brain
-Whole Brain
-No Brain

Left-brain ads are nothing but copy. (Mail order ads in magazines) Right brain ads have nothing but pictures. (Remember our Marlboro cowboy) Whole-brain ads have a combination or copy and pictures. No-brain ads are useless ads with no message whatsoever.

Having said that, here is the point. Make sure you understand what you are offering. What are the benefits of your product or service?

Customers buy on benefits, not features
Go back to the list you made above. Pretend you are the customer. Do you really want your product because of its features? For example, lets say you are selling a parka to me worn by downhill skiers.

One great feature of the Acme WinterWonderland Parka is that it has a Gore-Tex membrane that makes it waterproof. Now that’s great feature right? Would I buy that parka because it has Gore-Tex? Who really cares about Gore-Tex anyway? I am not even sure what it really is except some fabric thing made by some guy named Gore or maybe Al Gore invented it when he invented the Internet, who knows. I do know it costs more with that stuff in it.

Oh, it keeps me dry when it rains or keeps me dry when I fall down the mountain skiing so I do not get hypothermia and die? I get it. Yeah, I want that Gore stuff now. Why? I need that benefit of staying dry when it is cold outside. I am buying the benefit of the feature and who really cares if it is Gore-Tex or Micro Shield or Mini Gore Micro Block new and improved. You get my point.

Dual air bags. Air bags? I am buying a car not a balloon, forget it. I do not even see them. Cannot even touch them. Who needs this useless feature? Oh, they save my life in the event of an accident? Done. Feature = air bags, Benefit = safety. The emotion is tied to the benefit, not the feature itself.

Picture this TV commercial. Commercial #1. You are in a laboratory. High tech machines mix up a potion in a real fast swirling machine and it moves the vat down a conveyer belt to be smashed into a jar, another machine slaps a label on it and then the camera zooms into so we can read the label that says. “Oil of Fiji.” The screen reads “Made with the finest ingredients known to man etc. ” Then the screen lists all the great stuff in the cream. We then see pictures of plans and minerals.

Picture this commercial. Commercial #2. Cindy Crawford applies some cream to her face while wearing nothing but a bath towel.

Message: Commercial # 1 = Look, this product is made with high tech equipment and great ingredients.

Commercial # 2 = You buy this cream stuff and you will look like Cindy Crawford and who care what’s in it anyway.

Which one sells? “I want to by like Mike” (Michael Jordan)

After your sales process has begun and you find out why your customers purchase your product, you may want to re-prioritize the benefit list and incorporate this learning experience into your ads and marketing efforts.

“She’s So Irresistible”

There was such a song. Let’s apply it to your direct marketing mindset. How-To make your offers irresistible to customers? Give them something of added value for free. Sounds simple because it is. Order a magazine get a free video. Order shampoo and get a free travel size. Order a Happy Meal and get a free toy.

The add-on does not have to be product. It could be a service, terms, a guarantee or anything you can think of.

How-To Make offers Irresistible:

-Give them a bonus product
-Free Service
-An extended guarantee
-Terms of payment
-Easy to order, toll free number, click here etc.

The concept here is to make it easier for the customer to make the Yes decision. Watch the infomercials, they are masters at this. Order now and you get this. But wait, there is more. Not only do you get that but the next 100 callers get a free house in the Bahamas and … well you have seen these ads. Point is that add- on’s work to take the maybe’s to the yes’s.

Another technique is to split the price into three easy payments. The appliance sellers love to do this one. No payments until March 1st. Free interest for six months.

Urgency
Even many professional marketers often miss the element of time. Time is your enemy. Time kills sales. No matter how you do it, give them a reason to buy now. If you don’t, they will forget about you in a New York minute. More so then ever before we are getting data overload. Input after input, ad after ad, banner after banner.

Think of this potential customer: He is at work. He surfs the net. He sees banners and hyperlinks and pop-up windows until he sees none of them. They become like white noise to him. He tunes them out for the most part. He leaves work, passes through the lobby and there are magazines on the table with ads and more ads. He crosses to the parking garage where he is in view of billboards with more ads. He drives out the parking garage as he turns on the radio to hear Go to Priceline.com and name your price for this and that… As he drives home he sees more billboards and storefronts and signs of van and trucks. He arrives at home to pick up his mail which is full of flyers advertising the local merchants. He plops onto his sofa, clicks on the television and scans the cable channels to see a blizzard of advertising.

… to be continued …

Tags: direct marketing branding selling sex sells