Is Your Direct Marketing a Disaster?

Do you settle for too little, talk about yourself too much or rely on outdated and inaccurate data?


1) Channels: Most companies and marketers rely way too much on standalone channels that aren't focused on demand, that are not asking for a call to action. As a direct marketer needs to be committed to a well disciplined, programmed, result oriented approach while building a multichannel marketing attack.


2) Results: What kind of results are you willing to accept? If you only accept a 1%-to-2% response rate because that is the industry average you are making a big mistake. NO really if you want to be like everyone else and just as good as everyone else, ok be happy, but think about it, in what other part of your business do you accept 98-99% waist? You need to be expecting, getting, and insisting on double-digit response rates for you program.


3) Social media: As a marketer you are probably spending too much time talking about yourself and not taking enough time engaging in conversation with your friends, fans, prospects and customers. The main point of social media is to be social to be able to create a dialogue with people quickly putting aside the self-serving side of marketing.


4) Segmentation: As a Marketers I doubt if you are getting down into your lists deeply enough. Unless you are using a large enough segment of people or prospects you don’t have enough hits to know if you are on or off in your attack. Then again the smaller the nitch or audience the more pointed the message. This can work to your advantage. It is harder to create content for any particular audience but you can start using your experience and jargon words and knowledge if you are narrow enough.


5) Content: Are you one of the guilty ones who’s arrogance sticks out like a sore thumb? Are you one to the one’s that when it comes to creating relevant content you get lost in your own rhetoric and press releases? You need to be more humble about yourself and a little more engaging towards customers so they can tell you what they consider to be relevant and important to them! Get rid of the I’s and Me’s.


6) Metrics: What do you measure? We should to be more focused on sales conversions, not lead creation. What good is a lead anyway? Try taking a lead to the bank? Lead creation is part of our job as a direct marketers but the real thing to be measuring is sales conversions.


7) Lead conversion: Marketers spend too much time focused on the wrong people. Here is where you need a sales person. A blood hound. The person who initially responds to you is more often not than not, NOT the buyer. But marketers go after them as if they were the VP of purchasing. Turn that lead over to your sale people they have a way to get to the heart of the matter quickly and fast. That is after all their job specialty.


8) Lead nurturing: The problem in more companies is a lack of focus. Marketers spend too much time and money on lead acquisition instead of nurturing existing customers. I have been told (I don’t remember from who) that 66% of your advertising budget should be directed at existing customers, who already know you and love you. Thank about it. Do you only get excited about your customers at the end of their contract? Customers will and should go with the company that has been good to them not just at signing time and sending a required Christmas card but all though the year.


9) Value: You need to improve how they demonstrate to the “Suites” in your company on the value of direct marketing. If you are the “Suite” take a step back from what you’re doing and ask yourself “Prove it!” Then using hard data write down the proofs and facts on paper. And you can only accomplish this with insight that can only come from hard data. Numbers don’t like.


Larson Notes & Satire: 9 things here and I know I left out lots of important things to really make your marketing hum. I guess you will just have to keep reading from time to time to find what I missed putting down.


Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program.
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Program
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
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