During the 21st century, when email marketing was the full rage, many marketing professionals declared direct marketing dead. If your competition still believes this to be the case, that’s great news for you and something to take full advantage of.
The truth of the matter is email marketing does play a key role, but with people feeling “spammed”, direct marketing is a great way to get attention. Yes folks, direct marketing is still very much alive, but most companies are doing it incorrectly. That’s also good news for you, because we’re going to show you how to do it the right way.
Much like there are many stories we tell ourselves and that we’ve read about in many places, or that we keep repeating to ourselves and to others over long stretches of time and space, there are many accepted and believed in direct marketing folklore tales. However, each of these tales have some hidden potential that is worth considering.
Myth: email marketing is nothing but spam
Email marketing is only as spammy as you make it.
When properly done, you can get great results with email marketing. Recent data reveals that you could see a return-on-investment of up to 3,800% if you’re strategic in how you roll it out.
It’s about making it unique. Don’t just collect emails and send the same exact message to every single person in your list. That is the very definition of spam. Be thoughtful and strategic. Create different streams and different channels for your sales leads at various stages of the buying cycle, or customers in different target markets.
The more relevant your content is to the recipient, the more likely they are to open the email and engage with the content.
The other key is to adopt this mentality as quickly as possible. Because once a recipient is bored (or even worse, annoyed), they will mentally and literally flag you and send you to the spam bucket. Now they’re gone forever.
Myth: nobody reads regular mail
Some marketers will tell you that, “Regular/direct mail is fine if you’re targeting boomers or the elderly.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, Millennials respond to regular/direct mail in a big way and 77% of studied Millennials pay attention to what’s in their old-fashioned mailbox.
Their digital mailboxes are attacked every day with spammers and autoresponders. This means they appreciate the tactile touch of a piece of mail. They will respond to well-designed visuals and concise messaging.
Myth: a campaign with poor results is a time waster
Too many companies will run a direct marketing campaign, see disappointing numbers, declare the campaign a loser, and then move onto something else. That’s actually wasting a golden opportunity.
They say that when you lose, you should never lose the lesson. Or, you must fail before you succeed. A failed campaign likely contains several valuable lessons. If you can find the “why” behind the failure, one failed campaign can lead to five successful campaigns.
Take everything apart and look at why the campaign didn’t perform. Is there an issue with the creative? Or a larger issue with the group you’re targeting? Maybe it would help to bring in an outside company to look at what you’ve previously done and help you create a new plan. For example, the digital and direct marketing campaigns by 360 Leads have produced proven results in the B2B space.
Direct marketing is nothing but dead — It’s alive and has simply evolved over the years. This is why so many companies have written it off completely. This mass exodus has created an amazing opportunity for savvy marketers (like you) to reach a new audience by embracing strategic direct marketing campaigns to win over your sales leads.
Lots of hidden opportunity here. Now go forth and become that brave and courageous mythical hero.
