If You’re Not Using “Direct-Response Marketing” Tactics, You’re Leaving Money On the Table!
I keep shaking my head in bewilderment when I see business after business ignoring the power of “direct-response marketing” – rather, they continue to go down the “nonmeasurable path” of brand advertising.
Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely appreciate the massive value of “building a brand” – but my view is that “selling stuff ” and “building one’s brand persona” shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.
My business at www.theinstituteofwow.com specialises in providing marketing advice to all types of businesses, products and services – and when I’m presenting at conventions and summits, I ask attendees in the audience if anyone has ever purchased anything off an ad on the side of a bus or the back of a taxi.
You can hear crickets in the background. I then highlight to attendees of such events that millions ofdollars will be spent the following weekend on the “electronic fence signage” of the major sporting codes – and on Monday
morning, I bet no television viewer or game attendee will ever be able to remember one advertisement, let alone a brand name.
Do You Sponsor A Local Footy Club Or Netball Team?
The other thing that amazes me is the expectation that there will be an ROI from sponsoring one’s local junior sporting club. I’ve got six children and when they were going through the 5-15 age period, I recall many butcher shops and car dealerships sponsoring their sporting club and getting their logo put on the jerseys or singlets.
I can just about guarantee that not one extra sale ever came from such sponsorship. And if one wants to devote investment to this sort of sponsorship because their child plays for the club, absolutely fine – just don’t expect any return on such investment. (Unless the sponsor is clever enough to get access to the database of parents!)
If You’re Not Using “Direct-Response Marketing” Tactics, You’re Leaving Money On the Table! I’ve never seen a parent on the sideline with a pen and paper in hand, taking down the butcher’s phone number on the back of a jersey!
Direct-Response Gives You Measurability! The great thing about going down the direct-response path is that such tactics are “measurable.” As the term implies, you are supposed to get a “directresponse” – good, bad or indifferent. I have a burger chain as a client and have created a powerful direct-response marketing model for their business, whereby the owners are getting measurable results daily AND are building the brand persona at the same time.
Given the power of online marketing these days, this burger restaurant client posts a “secret code word” on Facebook and Twitter at 5am each morning and invites people to be one of the first fifty to quote that code word during certain hours and they receive a free item from the menu (it might be a milkshake one day and fries the next).
This is based on a wildly successful direct-response campaign in the US, for Sprinkles Cupcakes. This cupcake chain does likewise with offering free cupcakes if you mention a “whisper word” and over 70% of respondents buy more cupcakes, a bagel or coffee when they redeem their freebie.
In the instance of my burger joint client, they also “test” Free Burger Offers on their website from time to time – with the condition that it’s a 2 for 1 Deal.
Use Scarcity and Time Limitation When devising direct-response marketing campaigns, it’s important to stimulate a reaction by having either a “time limitation” to your offer or “quantity scarcity.” In other words, your offer is available till Friday at 5pm or it’s available only to the first 100 customers.
If you go to the trouble to create a Special Offer, it’s important to stimulate fast buyer reaction by limiting the amount of time or the amount of stock.
Of course it’s important that with direct-response marketing campaigns, you would devise the communications in such a way that they are building your appropriate “brand persona” at the same time.
So for example, if an upmarket hotel like the Palazzo Versace were to offer a “Winter Bonus Package,” all communications would need to be five star. The hotel might offer a free limousine pickup from the airport, a complimentary butler service for the weekend and tickets to Jupiter’s Casino Showroom – and all of the communications promoting this offer should be appropriately upmarket and prestigious.
Many consider “direct-response tactics” to be the poor cousin in the world of marketing, simply because they view such a strategy in the same light as Kerry-Anne Kennerley TV infomercials. Sure, the “Ab Swing and diet program TV ads” on morning television are “direct-response” – but you can still use the same tactics and maintain your upmarket brand, it’s simply a matter of “toning” your marketing messages accordingly. We use the term “message to market match” a lot in my business!
Incredible Home Loan Campaign! Some years ago I developed an extraordinarily successful direct-response marketing campaign for The Greater Building Society – where prospects were offered a free holiday with their home loan.
The concept was called, “Get A Home Loan, Get A Free Holiday!” In conjunction with a travel wholesaler, The Greater provided a free holiday to consumers who gained a home loan with the society. Consumers received reward points on a pro-rata basis, proportionate to their home loan - and then simply redeemed these points for holidays, which were detailed in a special online Holiday Directory.
The result of this unique customer acquisition concept was incredible – within a few months, the society’s home loans had tripled – and the promotional offer ran for ten years without the building society advertising an interest rate once!
Yes, you read that correctly – we were able to take the consumers’ eyes off the price and therefore The Greater was the only bank in the world that never advertised an interest rate with its home loans!
I added more “wow” to the wow factor by introducing Jerry Seinfeld as the spokesman for The Greater some years into the campaign. And this just took the promotional offer to a whole new level, with The Greater increasing its home loan market share three fold in just the first 24 months of Seinfeld’s involvement.
I’m highlighting this particular case study again, because it is the perfect and clear demonstration of the ability to “take the consumers eyes off the price” if you execute direct-response tactics cleverly.
The first tactic that most businesses use to attract new customers is to “drop price.” My mantra is that this should be the last resort and that you should be devising marketing campaigns that “take their eyes OFF the price.” And remember, before you book that next “brand ad” on the side of local buses, I suggest you think about ways that same money can be spent to achieve a “direct-response” result for you and your business!
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