Direct Marketing in Advertising

One day all the advertising agencies would be direct marketing (DM) agencies.
- David Ogilvy

Direct Marketing is the buzzword today as more and more companies are realizing the need to establish close relations with their clients. Recent wins like that of Mumbai's iContract which picked up a 'Lions Direct Gold', earlier this year at Cannes (France) for ICICI's 'Bond mela campaign', do indicate that direct marketing in India is gaining greater currency or at least greater visibility.

'Direct Marketing in India is still unexpressed. There was one entry this year and it won. Who knows what would have happened with 20 entries - five nominations and two lions would not be improbable'.
- Bimal Nair, Associate Vice-President & head of iContract

What is Direct Marketing -

Basically, it is another marketing tool to add skills to already existing strategies. The difference with DM is that is measurable and accountable. The fact that it is probably the best possible antidote to an extremely fragmented market helps its cause. Without DM customer-relationship management is merely in boardrooms. To offer value to the customers, one must know what is of value to them.

"To survive and sell in this age when everyone is not buying what everyone else is and your customers are finite while the competition is not, you have to have far more focus, and DM allows you to have that focus."
- Justin Rabindra, Head OgilvyOne

Direct Marketing involves direct interaction and transaction between the manufacturer of goods or the service provider with the customer, without the necessity of a middleman. Direct Marketing takes our message, our product and our services into the hands of the people and talks to well refined, appropriate target segments. It controls the style and force of that message and to do this effectively, 'Planning the attack' becomes critical in direct marketing campaign.

The basic factors, which are a must in DM campaign, are -

· Target audience must be well defined - Businessman or consumers? They should be analyzed in a very exhaustive manner.
· The target audience must be told about what we want to do? - It must be clear to the audience as to what (re)action is expected of them in response to your message. Do we just want an expression of interest or an immediate monetary commitment? We have to devise the most suitable mechanism of response and make it usage evident.
· Customer benefit - What is our USP? Why should they swing with us? We have to tell them without exaggeration. This is direct marketing and it is serious. We have to spell out concrete benefits.
· Personalize - This could make all the difference in the world. In fact, some say that this is the very essence of direct marketing. Our target must feel that we are talking to him or her, that we are actually interested in their benefit.
· At the heart of direct marketing lies the database management. Unfortunately not many companies take it seriously.

Not many companies are serious about developing their own database. They do not realize, if they have a customer for one of their product it is likely that with a little persuasion the company will get preference over others when the said customer is considering purchase of another product. For that we need sophisticated database management systems, which are not in place. The companies have the data fragmented and scattered. They are sitting on a gold-mine being of unaware or having any clue about it.
The greatest challenge facing direct marketing today is junk mail. Consumers are increasingly becoming wary about receiving unwanted mails in their mailbox. To counter this phenomenon the database management should be such that target lists are focused to the extent that only relevant customers are reached. Secondly, the message that you send out should be well written and attractive. Thirdly and importantly, innovative avenues like iContract bond mela should be explored.

Personal traits and qualifications

Communication skills are an absolute must, both verbal and written. The fundamentals of direct marketing must be clear. A person should have good analytical skills and an ability to understand people and to know the value of talking to a customer. MBAs with specializing in marketing and marketing research are preferred. Many advertising and DM agencies take people and train them on the job. The pay is good but what makes it attractive is the thrill of seeing tangible results, the sense of having contributed. It is not the career of future - it is the career of present times so ACT NOW.

CASE STUDY

The direct marketing wing of the CONTRACT advertising agency which recently struck gold at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival 2002 in the direct marketing segment is the finest example of DM based strategies.

The Job - They had to sell the ICICI's deep discount bonds, which mature over a long period of 15 and 20 years.

Target Audience - Naturally children who are between six to seven years now became the focus of DM team.

The Strategy - The DM team went to schools and held painting competitions with the theme "What I want to be when I grow up". Each drawing sheet had the child's name and address along with the name of the parents. So they had all the database stuff in a non-intrusive manner. Prizes, sponsored by Faber Castle, were given out and involved the teachers as well. They took the sheets back with them and sent all the parents a mailer saying that "Your child wants to be…" and enclosed an ICICI bond form along with the drawing sheet.

The Result - The DM team have generated a response worth Rs. 28 million with this for ICICI.