Aghreni Technologies Best Practices in Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Interactive Marketing, One-on-One Marketing and Database Marketing.

1. DIRECT MARKETING
Direct Marketing is a marketing process where companies market to carefully targeted
individual consumers with an appropriate, relevant and timely offer or message using
one or more advertising media to obtain an immediate and measurable response or
transaction.
Direct Marketers communicate directly with customers, often on a one-to-one,
interactive basis to build and cultivate long lasting customer relationships.
Direct Marketers use detailed databases where they understand customer’s
demographics, attitudes, preferences and purchasing behaviors. With this knowledge,
they tailor their marketing offers and communications to the needs of narrowly defined
segments or even individual buyers.
Direct Marketing is also referred to as Interactive Marketing or Database Marketing,
because it is expected to be two-way communication with the customer or prospect and
it is database driven, where the database contains customer demographics, attitudes,
preferences and purchasing history & behavior.
Beyond brand and image building, Direct Marketers usually seek a direct, immediate,
and measurable customer response. With digital advertising mediums and e-commerce
websites, it is possible to effectively track and measure customer responses, if the
customer looked at the offer, responded to the offer by seeking more information, visited
the marketer’s e-commerce website, or placed an order, etc.
Aghreni Technologies Private Limited – Bringing in Best Practices in Direct Marketing to Indian Marketers
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2. Early direct marketers used catalogs, direct mailers and telephone calls. They gathered
customer names and sold goods mainly by mail and telephone. Today, with the
advance in database and computer technology, direct marketers are using new
marketing media – the internet. Internet provides several mechanisms - email, web
advertisements and affiliated websites to drive customers to marketer’s website or
stores for sales.
DIRECT MARKETING PROCESS DIAGRAM
The following diagram shows a typical direct marketing process.
Set Marketing Objectives
Identify Target Market(s)
Communicate the Offer
Test Response
Measure Success and Evaluate
Aghreni Technologies Private Limited – Bringing in Best Practices in Direct Marketing to Indian Marketers
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3. SET MARKETING OBJECTIVES
In order to have a successful Permission Marketing Campaign you must set
predetermined benchmarks. In most cases, response rates will be your benchmark.
Traditional direct mail marketers recognize a response rate of 2% as considered great.
The advantage for Permission Marketers is that opt-in email responses are generally
much higher. Industry averages incorporates results from between 4-8% response
rates. In general 5% is considered good, and even 2% is not a disaster.
IDENTIFY TARGET MARKETS
Permission Marketers need to find a solid list of opt-in names that are willing and ready
to buy. Need to further identify your target audience through testing many lists and
categories as needed.
• Merge Customer Lead Sources
o Web based generation of leads – opt-in /opt-out marketing
o Contacts from trade shows, expos, seminars
o In-house list of contacts e.g., contact list in CRM database
• Create Market Segmentation
o Create target group of contacts for each marketing campaign
o Filter out the leads however you like, based on geographical,
demographical, behavioral and attitudinal data
o Identify accurate need and want of each market segment based on selling
and cross selling opportunities
o Set measurable goals for each segment
Aghreni Technologies Private Limited – Bringing in Best Practices in Direct Marketing to Indian Marketers
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4. MARKETING CAMPAIGN DESIGN
Streamline campaign design with multi-channel integration and multi-step one-on-one
dialogue capabilities
• Content development and management
• Define campaign audience, message, channel and timing
• Campaign testing
• Reusable and quickly adjustable
COMMUNICATE THE OFFER
Effective Permission Marketers have to identify an effective offer strategy to meet the
target needs. In the initial transmission you should create a strong call to action.
Following your initial contact you must nurture the relationship and interact with the
prospect via ongoing email. One goal might be to build community around your site.
This may be done through a free newsletter. The newsletter gives you a vehicle to
develop an ongoing dialogue, reinforce your product or services value and develop an
even stronger brand.
• Create a multi-stage direct mail campaign (different direct mail pieces on different
dates)
• Associate multiple stages to the campaign for example, a stage I might be an
initial post card offer and stage II a follow up letter depending on the response
• Produce creative for association with each DM stage
• Personalization of the creative
• Response tracking and data capture
Aghreni Technologies Private Limited – Bringing in Best Practices in Direct Marketing to Indian Marketers
http://www.aghreni.com

5. TEST RESPONSE
One of the unique advantages of Permission Marketing is the ability to test under real
market place conditions your various offers. Permission Marketers can test product
features, copy, prices, various email list categories, and with solid results. Conducting
very specific tests to hone your message, the offering and your audience is critical.
• Execute or schedule the reviewed campaign
• Generate merged DM pieces and labels
• Notify employees responsible to perform mailing
• Receive confirmation of physical execution of the mailing
• Update customer info
• Tracked responses from the first stage help profiling and segmenting the
contacts for the next campaign stage
• Personalized campaign messages depending on the contact’s response are
associated to the campaign stages
• The stages can be executed/scheduled as and when required
MEASURE SUCCESS AND EVALUATE
By calculating the campaign’s planned costs, you can calculate the needed break-even
response rate. By carefully analyzing past campaigns, Permission Marketers can
steadily improve their performance.
The ultimate value of a client is not revealed just by the client’s purchase during a
particular opt-in emailing. It is the profit made on all the client’s purchases over the
time, less the client acquisition and maintenance costs.
• Measure campaign performance
• Refine the next campaign performance based on figures from the earlier
campaigns
Aghreni Technologies Private Limited – Bringing in Best Practices in Direct Marketing to Indian Marketers
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6. • Measure the amount of sales generated by the customer over time
• Measure increase in sales and efforts
• Achieve greater operational efficiency by having all processes under one roof
and minimizing administrative costs
BENEFITS OF DIRECT MARKETING
Direct Marketing can bring many benefits to both buyers and sellers, whether it is
employed as a complete business model (like in the case of Dell Computers) or as a
supplement to a broader integrated marketing mix (like in the case of Hewlett-Packard
of Sony).
For buyers, Direct Marketing provides convenience, easy to use, and private way of
interacting with Sellers. Buyers from the comfort of their homes or offices can browse
mail catalogs or company websites at any time of the day or night. Direct Marketing
gives buyers ready access to a wealth of products and information, at home and around
the globe. Direct Marketing is immediate and interactive – buyers can interact with
sellers by phone, chat or emails or on the seller’s website to create exactly the
configuration of information, products, or services they desire, and then order them on
the spot.
For sellers, direct marketing is a powerful tool for building customer relationships. Using
customer databases and insight into customer data, marketers can target small groups
or individual consumers, tailor offers for individual needs, and promote these offers
through personalized communications. Direct Marketing can also be timed to reach
prospects at just the right moment. The internet is a great tool for direct marketing as it
provides interactivity, one-to-one communication, access to global markets and
measurability.
Aghreni Technologies Private Limited – Bringing in Best Practices in Direct Marketing to Indian Marketers
http://www.aghreni.com

7. Direct Marketing is a low cost, efficient alternative for reaching to customers through its
lower costs of media, and reaching to customers over internet, email and web sites.
Aghreni Technologies Private Limited – Bringing in Best Practices in Direct Marketing to Indian Marketers
http://www.aghreni.com