Direct Marketing 101

Defined

Direct marketing is defined as the use of mail, telephone, fax, email, personal selling, or Internet to communicate directly with or solicit a direct response from specific customers or prospects.  In this article, we will cover the different forms, or mediums, of direct marketing, as well as some of the issues that face marketers in all industries.  We will also take brief look at television, radio, and print advertising and explore why they are not forms of direct marketing.  In our next article we will discuss the importance and practice of targeting specific market segments to increase the effectiveness of your marketing message, as well as how to use some of these mediums to effectively communicate your message to prospective customers.

Available Mediums

Now that we have covered the basics of what comprises direct marketing, let's take a closer look at the different mediums we can use.  Simply put, a medium is a channel or system of communication; it is the method by which a message is conveyed.  As marketers there are endless ways to communicate a message, but for now, let's just look at some of the more popular types.

1) Mail - Post cards, fliers, sales letters, coupon offers

 Advantages - audience selectivity; flexibility; no ad competition within the same medium; personalization.

Disadvantages - Most "junk mail" gets lost in clutter and discarded without conveying its message; costs can be relatively high for larger campaigns; low response rate

2) Telephone/Fax - Outbound campaigns, incoming "receptionist" campaigns, toll free numbers, customer service lines.

Advantages - Many users; opportunity to customize message, highly personal interaction with potential customer

Disadvantages - high costs; staffing demands; DNC (Do Not Call) compliance is very expensive and fines for non-compliance are $11,000; sending faxes without prior permission to due so is illegal and will result in $1000 minimum fine.

3) Email

Advantages - very low cost; ability to customize messages; extremely effective communication skill for existing clients

Disadvantages - spam laws prohibit mass mailings; Internet service providers prohibit mass mailings; extremely cluttered medium; aggressive junk mail filters often discard emails that are legitimate; also see disadvantages of Internet

4) Internet - Websites, directory listings, search engine advertising (Note: See articles on Google and Overture advertising)

 Advantages - Low cost; semi-customizable; ability to provide tremendous amounts of information effectively and efficiently; dynamic (can easily modify message and information)

Disadvantages - Large number of population either lacks access, or does not use internet for this business transaction/research

5) Personal Selling - Trade shows, sales presentations, information/question and answer sessions

Advantages - most effective and personalized way to deliver a message to a potential client and for the most part, is what all other communications aim to produce

Disadvantages - high cost; time consuming; getting the proverbial "foot in the door"

6) Publications - News publications, trade magazines, informative literature

Advantages - provides customers with relevant industry information that will help them make an informed decision; creates the impression that author is objective and looking out for consumers

Disadvantages - often difficult to find resources; requires strong written skills

TV, Radio, and Billboard Advertising

Although TV, radio, and billboard ads are extremely successful at conveying information to very large audiences, they are cost prohibitive and ineffective for most businesses.  These types of advertising require huge budgets, as well as multiple and prolonged exposure to their audiences.  The reason that these three mediums are not considered direct marketing is because they lack the ability to specify the recipient of the message; therefore, most of your budget will be lost on recipients who are not in the market for you product or service.  Another caveat of "mass marketing" is that because it reaches such large audiences, your services must be robust to accommodate the diverse types of customers you will attract.  So for niche operators and smaller companies, your budget and time would be consumed by prospects whose needs are outside the scope of your services.  If your company is a candidate for this form of marketing, then you will best be served by a professional marketing firm that specializes in advertising media and has experience with other firms in your industry.

 This article was written by the team at LeadPortal.com.

Online marketing for mortgage brokers has become difficult to the point of impossible over the past few years.  Impossible in only certain regards.  For example, two or three years ago I would have explained to mortgage brokers the value of creating good content on your site so that you will get good results in the search engines.  I still believe that you should have a web site with good content, but getting top results in the search engines for mortgage related keywords has become next to impossible.  There is so much competition out there form the big mortgage companies and the thousands of lead companies that you will be fighting an uphill battle.  If you are targetting a niche market, even if it means focusing very small, then you should definitely focus on your content because you still have a chance. 

If 90% of your web site's traffic comes from paid advertisements (like Google/Overture), then you should strongly considering setting up a special "landing page" on your web site or even consider setting up a new domain that is only used for your landing page.  So what is a "landing page" site?  http://www.schooldebts.com is a good example of a landing page site.  This web site is used to gather student loan consolidation leads.  Making your potential customers wade through a long lead form or search around on your web site just to be able to find your contact information is the exact opposite of what you want.  You want these people to contact you so you can sell them a mortgage.  It is that simple.  That is your job.

Your landing page should have your contact information on it.  Make it easy for people to call or email you.  Tell them, in one or two sentences, why they should contact you and then give them a lead form to fill out.  Most leads are looking for brokers who are going to find them a good deal on their mortgage and will be easy to work with.  If you are focusing your Google/Overture ads on your local market, make your landing page local.  "I have been working here in Chicago for 10 years......"  Somebody coming to your web site who lives in Chicago will be more likely to fill out your lead form after seeing that than if you have 50 different loan calculators.

Driving traffic to your landing page is half of the battle.  The other half is to get that traffic turned into real leads.  K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple Stupid is the motto you need to live by here.  Once you have that lead in hand, your next is to make sure you are following up with the rate shoppers and tire kickers.  My next article will be about using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) package to help you stay on top of your leads. 

LeadPortal will be offering a service in the near future where you can get a landing page site that not only gathers leads, but populates the leads into your own CRM system.  This will be a very inexpensive service that will greatly benefit many brokers.  http://www.bestloanoffer.com/indexX.php is an example of a mortgage broker landing page.  More to come!

This article was written by the team at LeadPortal.com.