These days, branding is out and measuring return on every marketing dollar is in. Direct response is the way to make marketing accountable. How do you do that? Always ask for the next step in every marketing piece by including an attractive offer that gets prospects to take an action such as calling you or requesting more information.
Direct response is a powerful tool that spans both online and offline marketing channels. It can be used in ads, self mailers and sales letters to get prospects to call or to visit your website. It can be used online with ads, email newsletters, and your website to capture leads.
What is Direct Response?
Direct response refers to any kind of advertising that seeks to motivate prospects to take action. This can involve calling you to requesting more information to visiting your website to making a purchase. It is not limited to any particular advertising medium and it gives you the ability to measure results and returns on investment precisely.
Direct Mail and Email
Whether you’ve purchased a mailing list or have home grown your own, the key to getting response is dependent on a selective and constantly updated list. The selection of the right prospect list is the most critical point in any direct mail campaign. The best creative idea and the soundest copy may fail if the right prospects weren’t reached.
For snail mail, you need a list of people who might have a need for your type of service. That list should be National Change of Address (NCOA) compliant and should contain no duplicates. With email, it’s best to home grow your newsletter by allowing people to subscribe from your website. Using double opt-in techniques – meaning subscribers sign up for your newsletter online and then receive a confirmation email that they must reply to – is the industry standard in the wake of the new CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 that went into effect earlier this year.
Direct response advertising is more than just adding a coupon to an advertisement or writing a letter to a potential consumer. It is about creating an attractive offer that persuades prospects to respond. An agency can produce a beautiful mailing package, but it will not bring the expected result if the call for action is not correctly emphasized. One headline can mean the difference between 10% response, a 2% response, and no response at all keeping all other factors the same. That being said, effective direct response requires highly skilled copywriters to compose highly relevant offers for their target audience.
Measuring Performance
There are a number of ways to analyze and measure the results of your marketing efforts. These may include:
Building sales leads – Direct Response has proved to be an extremely effective and economical way to product highly qualified leads.
Drive traffic to your website – A postcard or mailer with an attractive offer can do wonders to get people to visit your website.
Generating businesses from old clients – It usually costs less to sell to previous clients than to acquire new ones.
Communicating with clients – Direct mail is a highly personal and effective way to keep in touch.
Introducing new products, services, or events – Direct response can be an excellent way to introduce your new book, promote a new service offering, or announce your upcoming seminar.
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