How Can the Principles of Direct Marketing Help Companies Deliver Their Objectives?

¶ … direct marketing help companies deliver their objectives?

The principles of direct marketing help companies deliver their objectives

Times are changing, the economies, laws and rules are also changing, however, the principles of marketing remain the basic driving factor of success for any business. The marketing strategies are changing, from manual to digital. Nonetheless, the challenge in understanding and executing the principles of direct marketing remains with the business enterprises. Marketing strategy becomes incoherent when the target audience changes from customer to another business; what represents the Business to Business, and Business to Consumer marketing (Ferrell & Hartline, 2011, p. 13).

Literature review

Direct marketing entails getting to the basics and drilling on the fundamentals of marketing to ensure that the business meets its objectives. There are many proclaimed principles to implement in direct marketing. However, the essential principles of direct marketing entail the following practices. The first principle to have in mind is the quality of the products and services business is offering. In practice, this may sound remarkably obvious. However, research indicates that, over time, the initial product launched in market deteriorates in quality due to the belief that the business has effective marketing techniques (Krafft, Hesse, Hofling, Peters & Rinas, 2010, p. 19). Additionally, some businesses in enterprises venture into the market without evaluating the quality of the product they are offering since some other business deals in the same product. Thus, they compromise on the quality of the product they are merchandising. Selling of low quality product and services that do not meet the quality standards requires immense hard work input. The poorer quality of product, the more technique the business will require marketing it. However, with products with good quality, meeting standards, the product marketing is easy and cheap. Therefore, in direct marketing, consider the quality of product or service presenting to the market.

Second principle, is to understand the target group of the business in presenting the product or service. Direct marketing does not have the responsibility of creating new markets, but rather that of identifying the existing and available markets. Therefore, this marketing principle emphasizes on the marketing structure focusing on the things that people want. Direct marketing establishes the significance of a direct business to buyer channel of selling in creating streamlined, efficient and profitable business, when the product presented to the market is what the buyers want. For instance, in the past few decades, computer never seemed to have such high demand. However, today, there exists a broad market for computers, due to the demand (Ferrell & Hartline, 2011, p. 32). Thus, this principle borrows from the law of supply and demand in business. When the business identifies what the customer wants, then they identify the market and its needs, hence supplying products that meet the demands of the customers. This makes direct marketing successful in its objectives.

The third principle of direct marketing according to studies is to identify the willing person to buy. It is next to impossible to have a product that has a hundred percent demand in the market. Therefore, in direct marketing, when engaging the customers, out of hundred people and there is one person who, has an interest in the product, the marketing procedure should focus on that single person (Ferrell & Hartline, 2011, p. 57). This is because; it is from this one person that the business will make sales. Thus, if the remaining ninety-nine do not have an interest in the product, then it is clear they will not buy. Thus, spending time on these people is wastage of time and resources. This necessitates the need for establishing database marketing, and creating targeted messages and offers targeting the buyer and not just any other person in the market. Therefore, this principle entails identifying the willing buyers and making the marketing strategy that focuses on aiding creating the interest in the buyer to buy.

The following principle of directing marketing entails understanding direct marketing as a strategy in marketing. It features understanding the practice in direct marketing, and features that will make the business achieve its target in the marketing campaign. This principle emphasizes on the business to ensure that it is using direct marketing as a strategy of marketing. The principle defines the basic elements in a direct marketing message (Ferrell & Hartline, 2011, p. 44). These elements include, offer, in which the campaign makes an offer to the buyer that gives the buyer interests in the product. This is showing the customer the benefits associated with purchasing the product, and bonuses gained if any. The second element of the direct marketing principle is the information in the message. This element outlines the essence of providing sufficient information about the product in the message that will cause the buyer and target audience to accept the offer immediately. The third and last element of the principle of direct marketing is the mechanism for responding to offer in place about the product. This allows the customer to facilitate reactions and feedback that will determine the success of the marketing campaign. Therefore, without these elements, this does not represent direct marketing in place; rather, it is only application of media that relates to direct marketing.

The fifth principle of direct marketing is the offer itself in the marketing campaign. The offer is an element in the fourth principle of direct marketing. However, here, it represents itself as an independent principle of direct marketing. In this case, the principle represents the contents and qualities of the offer. This principle emphasizes on the campaign going past the usual advert styles of stating the price of the product. In making an irresistible offer, the message is should manage to break all the resistance to the product and remove all doubts concerning the product (Ferrell & Hartline, 2011, p. 60). Such an irresistible offer in direct marketing include providing free trial samples, giving money back guarantee, facilitating gift for the participants, and giving limited time offers. The list on the basics of offers to facilitate in the marketing campaign is long and enables variation and combination of multiple basics of direct marketing offer. Thus, the offer in the product remains the most significant basic in making the product through any campaign given.

In addition to these principles, is another principle of direct marketing, which touches on the aspect of media utilization in the marketing campaign. It is a common mistake to find businesses and organizations concentrating on exploring one form of media, which looks the most promising in delivering results. The fact that the business employs the technique successfully, in utilizing that media does not close out the role of the other media in direct marketing (Krafft, 2007, p. 74). The most misused media in direct marketing are the television advertisement and print billboards campaign of marketing. However, with the emerging age of telecommunication and information technology services, there are several available channels of communicating to the prospective buyer. Therefore, the organization or business that relies on utilizing one channel of communication in executing the marketing campaign is missing a huge chunk of the potential market. Thus, in marketing, the procedure and structure advocated for by direct marketing, through this principle, is for the organization to invest in varied media when conducting its marketing campaign, especially the digital media platforms.

Moreover, the essence of the advertising campaign is to communicate to the intended customer or buyer. Therefore, the message constructed focuses on making the customer see reason in making the transaction with the organization for the service or product that it is offering (Krafft, 2007, p. 61). Therefore, this leads to the seventh essential principle of direct marketing. In direct marketing, the message of communication should make sense, not to the organization or business, but to the intended buyer. This is because; the buyer will most certainly not buy something that does not make sense to them. Therefore, the message structure of the campaign should be easy to understand, brief and structured in an attractive and sensible manner. For instance, it would be senseless in telling the buyer to hurry and make the transaction while stocks last, when the offer has eight months left before it finishes. Thus, this necessitates understanding the principles of marketing that constitute sense in the message sent to the prospective buyer.

The last principle of direct marketing concerns the interest of the organization or management in getting association with the campaign success (Krafft, 2007, p. 41). For instance, in most organizations, when there is a change of guard in management, the likely occurrence is that it will affect the existing market strategy in order to put its new mechanisms of marketing. However, this is contrary to the last significant principle of direct marketing. This principle states that there should not be change of the marketing strategy without proof of a better strategy to implement. The practice of changing marketing strategy due to personal interests or boredom of the marketing people only creates control of the campaign; while creating decline in the success of the marketing department of the organization. Thus, all the creative decisions regarding marketing campaign in direct marketing should be explainable from the mathematical response point and net profit evidence.

Critical analysis and commentary on the topic

The basic objective of any business, organization or company making transactions by providing its services and products in the market is to make a profit. Therefore, for the organization to have a successful run in the market there is a need to establish working strategy of marketing campaign. Direct marketing facilitates the establishment of a working campaign that will bring respective results to the company. In the business-to-business marketing structure, it entails businesses that deal in manufacturing, such as factories that manufacture hardware products (Meyer, 2007, p. 21). Therefore, the target market for such companies is the retailing hardware stores. Additionally, the business in the processing industry, such as food products processing will target the supermarket stores and other retailer outlets to sell their products in bulk. These examples of business-to-business marketing campaign required, there are various practices to implement in observance to the principles of direct marketing. The volume involved in B2B marketing is larger than that in B2C. In marketing, in B2B scenario, the focus is on the logic of the product (Meyer, 2007, p. 28). As the principle of direct marketing states on the aspect of product making sense to the buyer, it applies in this case. However, it is notable that, in this situation, there is no emotional attachment involved in making the purchasing decision. The focus in such transaction is to understand the needs of the buyer organization and its operational confines. This factor is in line with the principles of direct marketing, which focuses on understanding the needs of the buyer and delivering on their expectations. The B2B market has key interest in information about the product, and they seek information. Therefore, in the marketing strategy regarding the B2B transaction, it is essential for the campaign to have in depth information about the materials and products presenting to them (Meyer, 2007, p. 46). The effective marketing message on the product or service saves the buyer business time, money and resources. Therefore, the business-to-business market has an interest in the logic behind the product. They will want information from the campaign message that helps them save time, money and resources, while making maximum profit from the product. Therefore, understanding the principles of direct marketing in this perspective will help the company or organization to meet its objective of establishing broad customer base and additionally, maintaining that customer base; hence, making a net profit from the transactions.

Marketing in reference to the business to consumer aspect of the organization or company has a different perspective as compared to that of the B2B. Nonetheless, the principles of direct marketing still apply in making the company or business to meet its objectives. Business to consumer marketing focuses on making the customer see sense in purchasing the product in the market. It focuses on making the consumer see the benefit of the product. The driving factor in consumer purchasing is emotional content. Additionally, the consumers differ from B2B market in that they demand variety of distribution channels (Meyer, 2007, p. 78). The consumers do not like having lengthy marketing messages; thus, the drafting of the communication message to them ought to be short, precise and effective in influencing their buying decision. The consumer wants an advert that is to the point, making them understand the benefits they get from purchasing the product in the market. Therefore, the focus of the marketing campaign is to state out the benefits the product or services bring to them. The B2C marketing strategy of engaging the consumer also borrows significantly from the principles of direct marketing in guiding the company or organizations towards its objectives (Meyer, 2007, p. 98). To attain a broad customer base, and maintain that customer, the principle of talking to the prospective buyer applies. Talk to the consumer who is willing to buy in a way that makes sense to them. Therefore, applying the principles of direct marketing in the marketing campaign that focuses on the final consumer, the company or organization will easily achieve its respective objectives without many struggles. A successful direct marketing strategy basis its campaign structure from the principles of marketing.

Importance of database marketing and internet marketing in developing a coherent direct marketing strategy