• What is Direct Response Marketing?

Sometimes less is more…

It’s about working smarter in business, not harder.

With this in mind,  I want you to commit just 3 very simple words to your mind right now…

Direct Response Marketing

Those 3 very simple words can generate for your business… an incredible amount of cash / profit – if you know how to tap into this superb business resource.

Now, most small to medium sized businesses and their respective owners / directors, no disrespect but the majority haven’t got a clue about the subject of advertising and marketing. A sweeping generalization perhaps. Please bear with me. There is no easy way to say this but to get straight to the point…

Most small to medium sized businesses… their advertising and marketing leaves a great deal to be desired. Their efforts… pouring good money after bad, floundering around trying out this advertising tactic or that marketing tactic is going to get their business nowhere very fast. The bottom line?

Potential profits are hurting as a direct result of this lack of knowledge. And as you know knowledge is power. Having the right kind of direct response marketing knowledge to hand, can drive up your profits dramatically. The problem as I see it…

Most small to medium sized businesses, they advertise, they market, they think they are doing the right thing but…

…the trouble is, usually all they end up accomplishing is the precise and exact opposite – to what direct response marketing is really all about. They follow like sheep, copying the tactics used by many larger companies and corporations, a tactic which when applied to their own much smaller scale business operations – has a tendency to backfire on them massively.

Truly effective advertising and marketing is all about attracting potential customers, hot leads to your business and then directing them specifically towards a call to action, which in turn, will drive up your business profits.

If your focus is on image projection, the branding of your business only – you are missing the point.

You need to move your focus away from generating needless expenses for your business and hone in like a laser directed missile on your income / profit  potential and nothing else. And one of the best ways which allows you to do this, is through the medium of…

Direct Response Marketing

Allow me to identify what this is and how it can help you directly, to push your profits up exponentially…

One word… Salesmanship.

That’s right, salesmanship in print OR salesmanship via the medium of broadcasting. Today, you have at your disposal many avenues to explore. With all of the tools now available to you online, there really is no excuse not to be using some of them, to much greater positive effect. To name but a few…

Direct mail pieces, newspaper and magazine advertisements, creating a web page, Internet video, podcasting, MP3, DVD, radio advertising or perhaps most important of all to direct response marketing… creating an infomercial. With the sheer number of readily accessible tools now available to you at your disposal, creating an infomercial today is an extraordinarily simply exercise. And if you’re unsure about how to do this yourself you can of course outsource it.

Many professional individuals offer these services online today. When it’s completed to your satisfaction, simply distribute your new infomercial online, via one of the many online video distribution services, available on either a free or paid for basis.

Direct response marketing has one single purpose… never forget this all important point… Direct response marketing is there to generate an immediate response from your potential target audience. Getting potential customers to take instant action to buy into your products or business services. You want people to take action. An action, which in turn puts more money and profit into your business.

You position your products or business service right in front of your ideal target audience – offer them something attractive for them to buy into. Your job is to now nudge them or positively kick them straight towards your main offer. Placing your in-demand product or business service service right in front of the stampeding herd of buyers, giving them what they need right now – positioning yourself as the answer to their prayers, the solution to their current problem, pain or frustration and if you do this, guaranteed you will increase your customer orders.

More orders subsequently bring increased profits to the income column on your books. This is the very essence of direct response marketing – eliciting direct immediate action from your target audience to buy instantly, into your business products and/or services. The question then to ask yourself is this…

Right now, right this instant… what do YOU want your potential customer to do right at this very moment? What precisely do you want them to do? When you’ve established what you want them to do…

…you simply create your direct response marketing piece to get the action taken on their part, which will benefit your business. Do not forget, your entire business revolves around the concept of enriching the lives of other people and you… you’re in business to make a profit. So simply give your new potential customers what they want. Give them an easy way to access your products or business services and take action.

If you can provide a better product, a better service at a better price – sock this offer right in front of your ideal potential audience eyeballs. Direct response marketing has huge potential for your business IF it is utilized / tapped into properly. Do not…

…do not EVER under-estimate the sheer power of direct response marketing. This point cannot be overly emphasized. Make a strong case for people to buy into your business. Do it properly and you’ll find you can use salesmanship-in-print or broadcast media to be an excellent tool in overcoming every potential customer objection to making a purchasing decision today. You can answer questions before they are voiced verbally or in writing, in essence the performance of your business will benefit massively IF you put yourself into the shoes of your target audience and think how they think.

Direct response marketing therefore is a superlative marketing weapon of choice for many business people. If you are not taking advantage, utilizing direct response marketing personally you are missing out massively on a huge untapped income resource within your business model. Tapping into these untapped income resources, the hidden wealth within your business, could yield a huge return on your investment, many times greater than more traditional forms of advertising and marketing.

As mentioned above, do not EVER under-estimate the very real power of direct response marketing! It’s a force to be reckoned with, which could line your bottom line profits – with a lot more hard cash. And not forgetting this all important point…

Direct response marketing usually ends with a guarantee. This guarantee offered, gives your potential customers and consumers many more reasons to ultimately trust you. The guarantee will aid your credibility. The guarantee in your direct response marketing piece will inspire consumers to place their trust in you. When you have gained your new customers trust, you are now in an ideal position to be able to up sell / continue selling to this individual over and over again for many years to come.

It’s about starting a good strong business relationship with your customers. It’s a lot more cost effective to continue to sell to your present customer base than to constantly search for new customers. If you want to bring on board a whole new customer base to your business, to develop a long term positive relationship with these consumers – direct response marketing allows you to start doing this instantly.

By all means continue advertising and marketing your business the way you’ve been doing so for years, throw good money after bad, promote your image or brand alone and you will without fail (as a small to medium sized business / company owner) make the whole process of developing long term relationships with your customers very much harder for yourself, and of course this can become needlessly expensive. There are just 4 key elements to direct response marketing…

• 1st/ There is the offer

• 2nd/ It’s all about providing the right kind of information to your new potential target audience, which ultimately will help them to decide if your offer is right for them one way or the other

• 3rd/ A direct call to action

• 4th/ Implementing a way for your target audience to respond. This can be with a web form, a telephone number, an opt-in – the choice is yours depending on the product or service being offered. Make sure you put this direct response mechanism in plain view alongside or underneath your direct call to action

Tell the prospect what you expect them to do next. Make it a logical intuitive step to enable the prospect to do what you want them to do. Direct response marketing gets visitors, readers, listeners poised and ready to take action. When they take action, you can close the deal.

You’re happy and now, you’re new prospect is happy too that you have given them the answer / solution to the problem which they had in their mind. Direct response marketing moves the customer away from a position of frustration and pain – to an emotional experience of pleasure, if carried out, executed properly and professionally.

Now, you know your business better than anyone else but do you know and understand your prospects key misgivings? Do you understand, can you in advance perceive how your potential prospect feels? Can you put yourself in your customers shoes? If you can, your direct response marketing material will be a lot tighter as a result.

Another outstanding benefit of direct response marketing? You can track your customer responses. You can track their actions. This is invaluable marketing data helping you further to understand how your ideal, hot target audience actually feels about your products or services. It’s very important to give your prospects confidence to help them want to do business with you and no-one else.

• Give them the facts they want

• Give them the figures to back up your claims

• Give them everything which supports your case and positions you as the answer / solution to their prayers

• Write, broadcast your direct response marketing material with the main focus on supplying positive solutions, positive benefits, for the end consumer

• Switch the emphasis away from yourself and place this emphasis on the consumer

• Be their ideal solution

• Be their ideal benefit

• Get your point across as though they were a trusted friend of yours who you are trying to help out to the very best of your ability

If you do this… you are positioning your business products and services way, way better than most of your competition who are still using more traditional, unproven forms of business marketing for their business model.

• How will your business product or business service make your prospects life simpler, more fulfilled, simpler, easier, save them time, make them more money?

• What are the features of your product or business service?

• And what are the corresponding benefits of your business product or service?

If you explain these points well, convey these to best effect you will be well on your way to securing the course of action you desire.

• How will your product or service change your prospects life for the better?

• What will it do for them?

• How will it help them personally?

• How will it assist them to improve the quality of their life?

The bottom line questions are…

• Do you really want to dominate your marketplace?

• Do you really want to take business away from your competitors?

• Do you want to be the best in the business?

Direct response marketing gives you many options to explore. Direct response marketing is an incredibly effective marketing tool. Direct response marketing can deliver the results you want and need in your business – starting right now.

If you have found this direct response marketing advice useful, please do go ahead and start putting this to good use in your business model.

If you need a hand copywriting your very own direct response marketing material, we would be absolutely delighted to assist you to the very best of our ability.

Many thanks for reading, more copywriting blog posts will come very soon. Do look out for them!

Best regards,

Mark Andrews – Mark@IMCopywriting.com