Direct Marketing:

Definition:

            Direct Marketing is an interactive Marketing system that uses one or more advertising media to affect a measurable response and / or transaction at any location.

            Today, many direct marketers see direct marketing as a broader role, that of building a long-term relationship with the customer (Direct Relationship Marketing). Direct Marketers occasionally send birthday cards, information materials or small premiums to select numbers in their customer database. Airlines, hotels and other business build strong customer relationship through frequency award programmes and club programmes.

Advantages of Direct Marketing:

• The following are the advantages of Direct Marketing-
• Delivers near-perfect solutions to customer’s problems
• Gives individual attention to customers
• Facilitates finalizing of offers through interaction with the manufacturers, wholesalers or retailers as the case may be.
• Offers customized products  as per the preference of the customers.
• Helps achieve excellence in products/services
• Eliminates the hassles of going through marketing channels / stores.
• Facilitates sharper segmentation and targeting, ultimately each individual becomes a specific target market.
• Facilitates relation building with the customers
• Is better measurable, compared to mass marketing
• Is more cost effective
• Saves channel costs for the most part
• Saves advertising cost almost totally
• Is a versatile form of marketing, helps being selective in treating customers and pay special attention to large accounts.
• Benefits the customers too by enabling them to shop by sitting at homes save their precious time
• With every development in IT, Direct marketing’s efficiency keeps increasing, cost keeps decreasing.

Forms of Direct Marketing:

            Direct Marketing has several forms as it incorporates a variety of media. Direct –Mail Marketing is one form of Direct Marketing. Customized Mailing through databases and “Mail Merge” of word processing is the medium used here. Telemarketing is another form of Direct Marketing. Here, the phone is the medium used. Today, Direct Marketing uses the new age tools such as Computers, Mobile phones and the Internet for reaching prospects customers individually. Their availability at a low-cost and high-reach has substantially enlarged the Direct Marketing Opportunities.

1. Direct Mail Marketing:

            Direct Mail Marketing is similar to Mail Order Marketing / Catalogue Marketing. Usually, when a trading house markets various products by mail order, it is referred to as Mail Order Marketing  and  when a manufacturer practices the same method it is known as Direct Mail Marketing. Certain softwares allow creation of personalized letters, messages and offerings. In direct mail marketing, not only letters / brochures   are mailed to the prospects, but product samples, gifts and complaints are also mailed, depending on the context.

Example: Mother Care India does Direct Mail Marketing .It targets the mothers who buy items meant for kids.

2. Direct Response Marketing:

            Direct Response Marketing  is another expression of direct marketing. Direct Response Marketing uses different media (including letters / mailers), like telephone, radio, TV and Internet. Some direct response marketing campaign, rely totally on television “infomercials” (Commercials which give information about products, benefits and usage aspects and obtain responses). Toll-Free telephones too serve as a useful tool of direct response marketing. Toll free telephones help better ordering by the customer, better dialogue between the customers and the company and better service to the customer.

Example:  Dell Computers is one Company that heavily relies on toll free numbers to elicit customer responses.

3. Database Marketing:

            Data base Marketing is yet another expression in direct marketing. Although all forms of direct marketing are data base-driven, some experts treat database marketing as distinct form of direct marketing.

4. Tele-Marketing:

            Telemarketing is yet another form of direct- marketing tool. Hence, the marketer goes direct to the customer using telecom / IT facilities. Telemarketing is less expensive as compared to most other forms of selling. Moreover, it can be used in respect of different types of products. It suits industrial products, services and consumer durables. Telemarketing is usually done through special campaigns. Contact is established with hundreds of prospects in a campaign that normally runs through a few days. Several tele callers are hired for the tele-call operations. The Call Centre is the real operation theatre in telemarketing.

5. Tele-shopping /Home Shopping:

            Tele-shopping, alternately known as home shopping is yet another of direct marketing. One of the major characteristic of Teleshopping is that it is a low cost retailing system. Here, the marketer hawks the products on air and the consumer watches it on his TV screen at home, phone up the marketer and buys his requirement. With tele-shopping, in addition to the convenience, discounts, gift offers are also given to the customers.

Example: Doordarshan, for example allowed its channel for tele-shopping by Dee’s network on a profit sharing basis. DD gained a share from every item sold by the network.

6. Face to Face Selling:

            The original and oldest form of direct selling is the field sales call. Today most industrial companies rely heavily on a professional sales force to locate prospects, develop them into customers, and grow the business or to hire the manufacturers representative agents to carry out the direct selling task. In addition, many consumer companies use a direct selling force. Insurance agents, stock brokers and distributors working for direct sales organizations such as Avon, Amway, Mary kay and Tupperware.

7. Email marketing:

            Email marketing is also a direct marketing tool. A major concern is spam, which actually predates legitimate email marketing. As a result of the proliferation of mass spamming, ISPs and email service providers have developed increasingly effective email filtering programs. These filters can interfere with delivery of e-,mail marketing campaigns, even if the person has subscribed to receive them as legitimate email marketing can possess the same hallmarks as spam.

8. Door to Door Leaflet marketing:

            Leaflet distribution services are used extensively by the fast food industries, and many other business focusing on a local catchments business to consumer business model. similar to direct marketing, this method is targeted purely by area, and costs a fraction of the amount of a mailshot due to not having to purchase stamps, envelopes or having to buy address lists and the names of home occupants.

9. Voice Mail Marketing:

            Another type of direct marketing which has emerged is personal voice mail boxes and business voice mail systems. Voice mail marketing is a cost effective means to reach people with warmth of human voice. More recently, business has utilized guided voice mail (an application where pre-recorded voice mails are guided by live callers) to accomplished personalized business-to- business marketing formerly reserved for telemarketing. As there are abundance of “voice spam”, jurisdictions have passed many laws for regulating consumer voice mail marketing.

 

10. Multi level Marketing:

            Multi level marketing is a modified version of direct selling .Some times, it is referred to as network marketing, member to member marketing and affiliate marketing. Only firms which do not mind experimenting in reading customers practice it. The Process begins with sales person cum distributors introduced to the company by a sponsor. Each distributor picks up a product worth a certain sum and sells directly .After they have sold first consignment, they are allowed to pick up next. The distributor can recruit a second ring of distributor. The distributor earns commission at two levels and the process goes so on. Amway, Avon, Oriflame are the largest MLM outfits in the world. The Indian firm Modi care also sell its range of house hold  and personal care products.

11. Online Marketing:

            As many people find way onto Internet, the cyberspace population is becoming more mainstream and diverse. As a whole, Internet population is younger more affluent and better educated, they are more likely to use Internet for entertainment and socialising. Marketers are doing  on-line marketing by creating an electronic presence on the Internet, placing ads online, participating in forums, newsgroups, bulletin boards and web communities, and using e-mail and web casting.

Other direct selling forms:

            Some direct marketers also use media such as door hangers, coupons, package inserts, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, email, internet banner ads, digital campaigns, pay per click ads, billboards, transit cards etc.

Direct Marketing in India:

            While direct selling has thrived in India all along in the Insurance business, in other businesses, it has been catching up in the country only in recent years. But the progress has been rapid in the short period. Amway, Avon, Oriflame, Tupperware are all present in India. And Modi care has been using the method for selling its homecare and personal care products. Hindustan Unilever has also set up in more schemes, its direct selling outfit for its Aviance range of cosmetics.