Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts

Monday, November 5, 2007

Advantages of Personalized Direct Mail

Marketing gives a company visibility within a target market; it is how it attracts new customers and maximizes the lifetime value of existing ones. The ability to market a product or service is vital to a company's ongoing success-this is not a revelation. The struggle amongst marketing executives is never whether or not to advertise, but which marketing medium to make use of. With all the options that exist for marketing, consumers prefer personalized direct mail over other marketing options.

There are several advantages to using direct mail as your medium of choice to market your business. Direct mail is a cost effective way to target a specific market segment, while personalized direct mail adds to that medium an attention grabbing call to action.

Direct Mail and Segmenting a Market. [Read the entire article.]

Friday, October 26, 2007

Direct Mail Brings Five Percent Increase in Sales

According to the Direct Marketing Association’s yearly report, The Power of Direct Marketing, direct marketers could realize up to a 5.2% increase in sales, which is 1.5% lower than the growth realized in 2006, due to the continuing economic slowdown. Direct sales could hit $2.025 trillion in 2008.

To what is this continued growth in direct mail attributed? It’s felt that marketers continue to source money in to direct marketing due to its ROI when compared to other forms of advertising. With an economy that is continuing to lag, direct mail marketing allows companies to see hard results for their advertising dollar. While many industries continue to see an increase in their direct mail marketing investment, there are still some that are cutting back their direct mail advertising.

According to the direct marketing report, manufacturing, financial banks, and education services are among many industries that continue to put significant money into direct marketing advertising. Lags are seen in areas like petroleum, real estate and furniture industries.

Dr. Peter Johnson, the Direct Marketing Association’s research strategy and platforms vice president, and lead author of the report notes that direct mail marketing will “continue to help sustain the overall US economy.” This estimation is based on the fact that as much as 10.2% of the US GDP, or $1.41 trillion of demand is represented by direct marketing.

Employment in direct marketing in 2007 is responsible for 10.6 million jobs. A prediction of a 2.2% increase is expected for next year. Internet marketing has predicted expenditures of $23.6 billion in 2008, which is almost a $4 billion increase from 2007.

Despite this growth, many company’s marketing departments are concerned about the state of the economy. If the housing market continues to stagnate and fuel costs keep climbing, it is possible that overall marketing expenditures could be adversely affected. Considering direct marketing’s effect on our GDP this year, a decrease in its economic viability is something to be concerned about.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

What is Relationship Marketing

Studies show that improving relations with existing customers costs about 90% less than acquiring new customers!

Relationship marketing, as the name implies, is a strategy for growing, improving and maintaining relationships with customers. The objective of relationship marketing is to build long-term relationships with existing customers, or those most likely to purchase your goods and services, and then maximize their lifetime value. In addition to increased sales revenue, companies benefit from word-of-mouth advertising and lower administrative costs. Relationship marketing focuses on the unique characteristics, lifestyles, and needs of customers and tailors the marketing campaign based on how their product or service can meet those criteria. This personalized message is communicated over several channels and encompasses not only advertising and marketing, but sales, customer service, and any touch point between the customer and you.

Relationship marketing is not a one-time service, but a long-term marketing strategy. Variable Thinking is the only long-term business partner that can provide the entire relationship marketing solution, from database marketing to response tracking, under one roof.