Marketing and Advertising
Direct Marketing Campaigns, Print Advertising,
and E-mail Marketing Campaigns
What is Direct Marketing?
Direct marketing is a discipline within marketing that is used when measurable leads, sales, or traffic (retail or web) are the objective. A direct marketing effort is undertaken to generate a specific response — which can be tracked and measured.
Direct marketing can use any medium, including: television, magazines, newspapers, mail, email, banner ads, web sites, pay-per-click ads, radio, billboard, transit ads, package inserts, door hangers, statement inserts, card packs, etc. If the ad is asking the prospect to take a specific action — call an 800 number, visit a web site, return a response card, place an order, complete a survey, etc. — it is a direct marketing effort.
Advantages include the following:
- Targeting – Historically, the most important aspect of direct mail was its ability to precisely target previous customers. If a suitable list was available, it also did a good job of targeting prospects.
- Personalization – Direct mail can address the customer personally and be tailored to their needs based on previous transactions and gathered data.
- Optimization – Because of its direct accountability, direct mail can be tested to find the best list; the best offer; the best timing (and many other factors). Then the winning tests can be rolled out to a wider audience for optimal results.
- Accumulation – Responses (and non-responses) can be added to the database, allowing future mailings to be better targeted.
Print Advertising
- incentivised advertising via print and ground resources
- internet web presence and the power of search engine traffic
E-mail Marketing Campaigns
SEM ans SEO are directly related to internet marketing. SEM stand fors Search Engine Marketing. SEM is a methodology of marketing techniques which increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages. SEM strategies include:
- Search engine optimization is the process of improving a web site’s structure, content, and relevant back link count in order to improve search engine rankings for websites, web pages and relevant keywords.
- Pay per click advertising uses sponsored search engine listings to drive traffic to a web site. The advertiser bids for search terms, and the search engine ranks ads based on a competitive auction as well as other factors.
- Paid inclusion feeds listings into search engines, typically comparative shopping sites like Nextag.
- Social media optimization promotes businesses and/or products by placing ideas or ads within on-line communities in order to spread those ideas and knowledge of products through community contact.
