5 Major Direct Marketing Challenges Faced by SMBs

Direct marketing is considered to be one major tactic that each of us has in the marketing toolbox. Unfortunately, many do not maximize their power of direct mail marketing or the power of solid database marketing. Given below are the five major questions that would help you overcome the challenges in terms of direct marketing.

What comes first the data or the audience

The very first question you need to ask yourself is what your goals are. What part of sales and marketing process are you striving at in order to improve? For example, if your goal is to get new leads, then your audience is the ones whom you have never ever reached. Of course, you would be having the demographics, the descriptions in order to describe the leads in a better manner. In case your goal is customer retention, then the audience is the existing customers. Most campaigns are geared through lead generation rather than the process of customer retention. So starting with the right marketing audience in mind would help you identify the data you would need to use and deal with.

Am I using the same pitch again and again

It’s startling how many organizations have been approaching the prospects just because they are in the same town? Some businesses are like in local only said for example restaurants and plumbers but many are not. Don’t confuse yourself on how close you could make your customers feel with how close they are geographical. Studies have shown that only 1.27 percent of the marketers who actively seek advice on the lists. Yet a data consultancy can find thousands of companies that could make better prospects just a few miles beyond the usual sales and territory.

Are you using the right channel for marketing: It is important for you to make sure your message you are trying to communicate matches with the medium you have been using. And while people have been focussing on email marketing campaigns as their business marketing method, for now, you could still get results from direct mail otherwise known to be a traditional envelope or a telephone. While a print mailer would help you get more time and effort, the extra effort is the results of the standard email marketing campaign.

Is my customer likely to think who this is: Messages that are few are far between mean your customers will forget you. Nearly one-third of the marketers believes and says that they spend over a month, and frequently up to two to three months in order to just plan up their marketing campaign. In those three months how many different ways you could have tried or even tested. For example, if you are struck between the things to say here is an idea: you should then all be mailing customers hot, cold, and at least once a year asking them to update the required details and job moves. Don’t treat it like a chore it’s just a marketing opportunity by all itself.

How old is your list: How many people on your list have moved or changed their jobs. Check out your customer’s data making sure that the list is accurate enough. So don’t spend time, energy and money on the dead names that are mentioned in your list. Review your list after each and every spend eliminating those names that are no longer valid.

To conclude direct marketing can be one of the best ways to build your business online. So try and use this as your checklist in order to make sure each and every campaign is a powerful one in the way it has to be.

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Jain is a Creative writer who focused on small business solutions. His recent article is about email campaigns which help entrepreneurs to manage their sales and marketing. He writes more about data hygiene software.