Direct marketing focuses on building a direct and long lasting relationship between your institution and the individual (potential) customer. Direct marketing means you will collect more and more information about the (potential) client with the objective to develop a prospect or client profile. These profiles will permit that the instution sends very focused offers to its clients, which translates into a high sales potential.
The client information will also be used to analyze the needs of the target group, test new business ideas, verify customer satisfaction, etc. Direct marketing thus combines market research and testing, client relationship management, sales approaches and promotional activities.
What are the basic steps for establishing direct marketing?
- Collect data about your clients, members or alumni and potential clients
- Store the data in a systematic way (contact database, client database) and classify every entry according to target group characteristics (e.g., individual/organisation, profession, sme/big enterprise, sector, education, location)
- Define the target audience you want to send a promotional message to
- Establish the list of adressees with the help of your database
- Chose the media that best carries your message to your target audience
- Put together the message that will be best tailored to the target audience (see"Tips")
- Monitor responses and decide on any sales follow-up actions
