DIRECT MARKETING
Direct Marketing is subscriber database driven marketing, targeting at the segments,
the marketer is positioning his/her product or services through appropriate and relevant
messages.
Direct Marketing is characterized by the following.
1. Customer or Subscriber or Prospect databases that make targeting possible
2. A view of customers as assets with life time value
3. Ongoing relationships and affinity with customers
4. Data based market segmentation
5. Research and Experimentation (testing)
6. Benefit oriented direct response advertising
7. Measurement of results and accountability for costs
8. Interactivity
9. Multi-media promotion
10. Multi-channel distribution
Database lists can be looked at as market segments to which promotion efforts are
directed and from which databases are generated. Lists can also be viewed as readers
of a particular publication or a television program. They can also be viewed as
segments like purchase preferences, purchase behaviors, and transaction events.
Loyal customers generate greater profitability for a company than do new customers.
When compared with new customers, loyal customers,
1. Spend more money over time
2. Cost less to serve
3. Are less price sensitive
4. Generate referrals for the company by spreading positive communication
Aghreni Technologies Private Limited – Bringing in Best Practices in Direct Marketing to Indian Marketers
http://www.aghreni.com

Therefore, direct marketers actively plan to keep their customers happy and loyal to
their business by attempting to exceed customer expectations instead of merely
meeting them.
Customers can exhibit a characteristic of relationship or affinity and can favor purchases
and ongoing loyalty with a particular brand, product or company. In return they expect a
quality, value and service. Businesses, in turn seek customer loyalty in the hope of
creating an affinity that keeps customers from coming back.
Market segmentation consists of clustering the company’s potential consumers in
groups that clearly differ from each other but show a great deal of homogeneity within
the group. Database lists with customer demographics, preferences and purchasing
behaviors provide enough information to create customer segmentation for marketers to
target their products or services by appropriately positioning the product offering to the
market segment.
Testing the offer is finding out if the marketing offer generates a specific outcome.
Marketers should test their offers on an ongoing basis. Early testing of an offer on a
small market segment may save time and money, before a complete offer may be rolled
out to the entire consumer market. The goal of testing is to determine what will work the
best in generating a response from the consumer.
Mass market advertising having survived for years in a largely unaccountable manner,
now faces a future of measurement. Database driven direct marketers utilizing the
internet are obtaining that knowledge, enabling them to profile their customers through
additional knowledge on customer demographics, preferences, and purchasing
behaviors and using promotional strategies that will not only drive prospects to their
websites or stores, but also engage them in meaningful and ongoing transactions once
there.
Breakthroughs in technology has allowed direct marketers and customers now interact
in multiple mediums like personal computer, cell phones, internet, telephone and
television.
Aghreni Technologies Private Limited – Bringing in Best Practices in Direct Marketing to Indian Marketers
http://www.aghreni.com

The internet, company websites, e-commerce portals, social networking websites,
blogs, review an price comparison websites have all helped marketers promoting
through various electronic media, apart from traditional print and broadcast media.
Direct Marketers are tapping the synergy among various media, which allows them to
select the media or channel they prefer when shopping for products or services. Many
marketers are now offering consumers a catalog, toll-free number, a website or an
affiliate website from which they may shop, apart from retail channels and outlets.
Aghreni Technologies Private Limited – Bringing in Best Practices in Direct Marketing to Indian Marketers
http://www.aghreni.com