Direct Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing

Direct Marketing and Traditional Marketing/Advertising: What's the Difference?

Awareness/Branding

Traditional marketing associated with advertising primarily seeks to create awareness for a business, product, service, organization, or brand. The goal is top-of-mind awareness so that when the time comes to purchase, the advertised brand, product, or service will come to mind and ultimately be purchased. The marketing in this case usually consists of memorable ads or commercials that make an impression on its intended target. These types of campaigns usually take a long time to become effective. It also takes a long time to determine their effectiveness.

Measurability/Action Oriented

Direct marketing truly is sales-oriented marketing. That is why most, if not all, direct marketing has a "call to action", a directive offered to the prospect to do something toward placing an order, buying something, or responding in some way. There is an expectation that the prospect will respond directly back to the marketer. Direct marketing does not offer entertainment and is not an awareness activity but has clear sales/results orientation associated with it.

 Respective calls to action such as "Call this toll-free number," "Visit this web site," or "Visit this location for your free gift" are characteristic of high impact, direct marketing advertising. It is the type of marketing that asks for your order and asks you to do it now.

Because of these direct-response requests and the shorter-term nature of this type of marketing, direct marketing is very conducive to being accurately measured. Direct marketers are not interested in how many people remember a particular ad or what their preference will be the next time they have a need for a particular product or service. Any retention, awareness, or recognition is considered a bonus and extra benefit to the direct marketing campaign. The emphasis of direct marketing is whether the recipient of the marketing responds to it or not. They either respond or they don't. It's a black-and-white situation. A response or lack of one is very conducive to accurate measurements. Direct marketing is a business of mathematics.

Targetability

Direct marketing is not mass advertising. Whereas traditional marketing is interested in appealing to as many viewers as possible, direct marketing is interested in a more focused, more interested group of prospects, which is usually, but not necessarily, smaller in number. These groups are very targeted and usually share a set of characteristics, demographics, and/or geographies.

Direct marketing tends to be very informative, giving the potential purchaser enough information to make a quick, informed buying decision. This can mean long sales letters instead of short catchy ads. In many cases, a direct mail ad, letter, or marketing piece I the only touch to a prospect. The marketer therefore has to tell as much o the sales story as possible in a single instance.

Creativity

True direct marketers don't care how "pretty" their ad or marketing looks. They are not as concerned about entertaining graphics as much as traditional marketers are. They subscribe to what David Ogilvy, in Ogilvy on Advertising (Vintage Books), said:

                 I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write and advertisement, I don't want you to tell me that you find it creative. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.

The focus of direct marketing is on results, on sales, and on response; it's not a fancy graphic, picture, or a commercial concentrating on peaking awareness and leaving a lasting impression.

Small vs. Large Entrepreneurial Orientation

It's often said that direct marketing levels the playing field for small companies vs. big companies. Just look at the pile of direct mail/e-mail you receive every day. Can you really tell if a mailing came from a large corporation or a one-person entrepreneurial business? Sometimes you can, but most of the time it is impossible to differentiate. Because of this, small business can compete with big business on a level playing field of equal opportunity to market and sell directly.

With the growth of small businesses and entrepreneurial ventures comes the growth of direct marketing.

Design

Talk to a sophisticated advertising agencies, and they rave about their winning designs and staff of graphic designers. Talk to a direct marketer, and they couldn't care less about these. To a direct marketer, if the ad/marketing produces results, they don't care what the marketing vehicle looks like. Direct marketing, many times, will use more text than graphics in the design.

Claude Hopkins, the famed marketer, advertiser, and author of My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising, said to use pictures in ads only when they present a better selling argument than the same amount of space set in type.

The goal of direct marketing design, in contrast to traditional advertising, is to keep the prospect involved. The longer you can keep an interested prospect reading, the greater the response will be to the direct marketing message. That's why you see long copy used in direct marketing messages instead of just pretty pictures. The direct marketer must keep the prospect busy until the presentation and offer is so compelling that immediate action and response are taken.

Copy

It's clear that "copy is king" in direct marketing. Copy isn't king in a McDonald's "Lovin' It" commercial or a Nokia "Connecting People" ad. Copy is king on a one-page direct-response sales-letter web site. Direct marketing is a selling medium. In a true selling medium, words are more effective than pictures. In direct marketing sales situations, the longer you can keep an interested prospect reading, the closer they get to a response or purchase. Direct marketing has often been described as being, copy intrusive, copy dominant, and copy pushy.

The focus is on how to communicate, again and again, an offer that is to be acted upon. Yes, you live in a world of interruptive messaging and marketing. The direct marketer interrupts to the point that their offer is responded to and action is taken.

It really is personal marketing as it tends to be one-on-one in nature. It is personal from the standpoint of developing a relationship. The direct marketer tries to find out as much as he or she can about the target market members, over and over. The gathered information is kept track of. This information is continually used to improve upon the marketing in place, ever aiming to a more refined target and better results.

Direct marketers want a direct response. The response may or may not be a direct sale. Direct marketers are most interested in getting a customer but not just any customer. They want profitable customers who buy over and over, more and more, with a high lifetime value. Their marketing achieves this with direct-response mechanisms and direct-marketing vehicles.

What do you think!