Top Rated Direct Marketing Agencies

Marketing itself has changed quite significantly over the last few decades, as the digital, connected world has vastly increased how many ads and promotional materials we are exposed to daily. In this world of increased competition, standing out from the crowd can be a challenge, and marketing messages often get lost as background noise to whatever people are doing.

That is where direct marketing steps in, offering a more targeted, personal approach that engages with the individual far more than generic marketing programs. Like that time coke put people's names on the bottles. Even if you hadn't drunk coke for years, you spent hours trawling round every Woolworth's in travelling distance to find your bottle or the silliest name you could find.

Like all marketing today, it can take many forms, with direct marketing being provenly effective in both the digital and real world. Campaigns often embrace more than one platform, and one of the features of successful direct marketing is that it uses multiple approaches to maintain a conversation with the customer across several areas, from social media to email and even physical mail.

By delivering this ongoing conversation, consumers feel more engaged, that they are interacting rather than being marketed to, and this has been at the heart of many successful direct marketing campaigns. While the exact type of marketing that is most effective will depend on the demographics, products or services being offered, direct marketing can include:

Whether you use one or multiple variations of these, all have shown that they can deliver exceptional results for any marketing campaign.

Direct marketing tools include advertising, database, Internet marketing and telephone marketing, with each contributing in different ways to promoting the offer, service or brand that the campaign is focused on.

Advertising, internet and telephone marketing are the mediums in which direct marketing delivers its message to the individual, whether that is a mailshot, email, text message, phone call or even direct messaging on social media such as Facebook. This is the part that is ultimately what we see as direct marketing, the marketing message designed to persuade an individual to buy, sign up or whatever other action is required.

However, data is just as important, although the role it plays is much less clear unless you see how a direct marketing campaign is created. What separates direct marketing from general marketing is that it is personalised. If you bought a mountain bike from Anaconda for instance, they may start sending you offers for bike helmets and other accessories. The key to that is data.

When you spell out what direct marketing does, it can sound a bit sinister, like these companies are stalking you, but in reality, companies simply use what they know about you to offer things you may actually want.

The simple answer is anyone who wishes to promote a product, service or brand to others. However, direct marketing allows you to generate a specific response from targeted groups of customers. It's a particularly useful tool for small businesses because it allows you to: focus limited resources where they are most likely to produce results and measure the success of campaigns accurately by analysing responses.

This can be extremely beneficial as it allows for a better return on investment, and for small businesses who don't have resources to waste. By speaking to people based on the things you know they are interested in, such as offering bike helmets to people who have bought bikes, you are more likely to get a positive response, and that is why direct marketing is so useful.

You are not just blindly trying to promote a product to anyone passing, like the guy dressed as a burger outside a fast-food joint, but instead seeing what people like and finding an offer to suit them. In a time where everywhere you turn there are ads, on your phone, the TV, radio, bus stops, etc. having something aimed directly at your needs is a welcome change of pace.

All marketing carries some cost, after all, it gets you more business and is key to revenue and business growth. In fact, while costs vary depending on the type of marketing campaign you are going for, it is relatively inexpensive given the outcomes that are possible.

For instance, direct mail pieces can cost anywhere from 30 cents to more than $10 per person, depending on how much you spend on design, marketing copy, mailing lists, printing, and distribution. Some organisations do much of this inhouse and wind up only paying for printing and mailing.

Think of marketing as an investment, whatever you put in, a good marketing campaign will deliver multiple times more in return in increased sales and customer growth (if done well).