Direct marketing, is it for you?

Let's consider take a look at direct marketing, and perhaps some of the things we discuss will help you make this important decision.
1. Direct marketing means exactly what it says, you're going directly to the customer. Of course, in a certain way you're going directly to the customer, if, say, he reads a certain sports magazine and you've got a big advertisement in it. But still, you're targeting every reader of that magazine. And you can bet that the readers of those magazines aren't opening them up to find advertisements. Magazine marketing is effective, of course, as is television marketing, billboard marketing, radio marketing, and so forth. But direct mail does have the distinction of being direct, of going right to a person's home, his or her name's on the mailbox.

2. This, as you might guess, has both advantages and disadvantages. Let's look at the disadvantages first, as they're pretty easy to get out of the way. People like their privacy. You like your privacy. I like my privacy. Sometimes, if I open my mailbox, or my email account, and I see my name on an envelope or on the computer screen I feel as though my space has been violated. But really, though, when I think about it, it's a minor irritation; and when I see something that interests me, I hold on to it. And that might not have gotten to me any other way. I probably wouldn't have noticed it in a magazine or on a billboard. But people go to their mailboxes every day; and they look at every piece of mail they've got.
3. This means that you're at least getting the benefit of knowing that people are giving a second to looking at the name of your company, and maybe what you have to offer. When you're direct marketing, you're sending your advertisements to quite a few homes at once-well, quite a few doesn't really do justice to it-sometimes you're sending advertisements to hundreds of homes, thousands of homes, even millions of homes. Let's say business is booming and you're getting your advertising into a million homes.
4. That means that perhaps a million people are focusing their eyes on your company, your product, your name. Even if they don't choose to read it then, it's fixed in their mind, and spotting it on a billboard later or finding in a magazine might trigger something.
5. Some argue that the fact that email is so rapidly becoming the communication method of choice, direct mail marketing will soon be old and outdated and passé and useless. This, however, isn't necessarily so. The Postal Service is still going strong, and still offers benefits that email can't. You may actually have an advantage by sticking with this sort of direct mail marketing, if younger companies start pulling out for fear their not up with the times. I know that I delete email advertisements immediately (usually), whereas with direct mail I leaf through to see what I've got. That is, I give it two or three seconds more notice than I do what's in my email account. As everyone knows, though, in marketing two or three seconds is a long, long time.
6. Now, it'll of course be necessary for you to do more research about direct marketing before you make such a decision. And you'll need to get more poll information than a solitary writer can provide. The advantages, to sum up, of direct mail, are that it is relatively inexpensive for a business to engage in, it goes to the mailbox so that you're guaranteed that your potential customer will see it. Finally, many people consider the mailbox homely and safe and old-fashioned, and less intrusive, rude, and demanding than email.

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