Power Direct Marketing: The Book
Why Careful Audience Selection Is Vital
Freewheeling advertising spending is being replaced by smart, careful target market spending. Image advertising is being replace by product specific marketing campaigns. General advertising media are being replaced by target market tools that zero in on your best audience, and talk to them with a specific message of interest.
These programs are designed to gain a lead for a sales force, to build traffic at a consumer or business retail store, or to make a sale by mail order of products and services to use either at the office or in the home.
During the last decade we have already seen many more media vehicles than were ever dreamed possible prior to the electronic age. This is the age of overchoice. More media vehicles are being developed, tried, and tested. Many have failed. Many will fail. Some have fallen on hard times but are hanging in there. Some will be successes and be with us into the 21st century.
We’re all affected by these new ways to reach for new customers—to identify and reach our best audiences. The end result is a much more fragmented, segmented, targeted marketplace to reach into, to select from, and to sell to.
Direct marketing as a technique to reach for new business by target marketing has grown dramatically since World War II. The primary mission in devising any marketing communications program is to be both effective and efficient. BOTH! Something direct marketing is good at being—provided the right audience selection happens in the beginning.
Unfortunately, it is possible to be effective and cost inefficient. And, it is possible to be efficient with monies—and totally off the mark with effectiveness.
Cost efficiency is relative. Against your goals and objectives you must consider the product and offer and—the key ingredient in all communication efforts—the audience.
Cost per impression of contact is not important. Cost per lead is somewhat important and is certainly both interesting and helpful in future planning. Cost per SALE is the important factor!
It really doesn’t matter what it costs to make a contact or gain a lead. It doesn’t matter the cost to qualify that prospect or handle fulfillment. It matters considerably what it costs to sell that prospect, to turn the prospect into a customer. To make the sale, to get the order.
Getting the sale efficiently and effectively will turn a profit for your company—which is really what the entire marketing process is all about. And you can be both effective and efficient only when you begin your direct marketing efforts with accuracy in audience identification.
Remember, the message must be right for the audience. More importantly, the audience must be right for the message. You must take accurate aim to hit your target.