Making the most of marketing

Sending marketing material directly to potential customers is often more effective than running an ad campaign in magazines already cluttered with ads and where you are competing with large companies with bigger budgets.

To create a truly effective direct marketing campaign takes good planning and good data. You must be clear about who you are trying to target and how you can best communicate with them.

The first step is to have a clear strategy. This should cover your goals, purpose and budget. Are you trying to reach as many people as possible or just a few targeted decision makers? Are you going to go out once or will there be a follow-up? And how will you measure success?

Also consider your previous campaigns, including what channels you used to communicate - what worked and what didn't? Telemarketing? Maildrop? Electronic marketing? Or a combination?

The success of your campaign also depends heavily on the quality of data you possess about your target audience.

The simplest and cheapest option is an unaddressed and untargeted mailbox drop, allowing you to reach to a large number of people. But this may also be less effective than a more targeted approach, resulting in a lower return on investment.

The aim of direct marketing is to reach the people most likely to be interested in your product or service. This can often be a case of timing - a new home buyer is likely to be thinking about decorating or insurance products.

In-house databases are a good source of information from which to build a direct marketing campaign, though you need to consider carefully the quality of the information they contain. A profiled in-house database, including information about buying behaviour and customer history, is ideal. But typically most SMEs have a client database with only simple information, such as names and addresses.

In-house databases can be augmented by other information from third parties, such as purchased databases. These are a good way to obtain targeted information but are more expensive and the information may not always be accurate.

You can also piggyback on another organisations, such as a chamber of commerce, which regularly communicates with its members. But access to the member database can be an issue and the audience needs to match yours.

Companies, such as Datamine, can also assist by taking raw data and helping to focus it more effectively on your target audience. For example, Datamine can overlay database information with other sources, such as census information, to create targeted profiles of who to direct your marketing to and where they are most likely to live.

Use your strategy as a guide to determine if printed or electronic material best meets your objectives. The key is to create a compelling offer to motivate your audience to respond. Your offer should be easily understood and include a call to action and contact details for your company.

The success of your campaign will be directly influenced by your ability to solve a problem for your customer. Remember, communicating is easy. The key is to communicate the right message at the right time to the right audience.