The Term marketing basically refers to informing about the value, use, benefits and advantages of the product to the customer or buyer. Marketing is divided into 2 categories direct marketing and indirect marketing.
It is very important for every business in today’s world to know how to market a product it does not matter if you are selling a hair pin or an airplane you have to market your product. It’s not going to sell itself.
What is direct Marketing?
Direct marketing is basically a system where once the goods are manufactured and ready for use they are sold directly to the consumer by using different marketing methods that connect the buyer to the manufacturers goods directly, and there are no middle men involved.
This is done by connecting to the consumer directly using different modes such as Telemarketing, Email Marketing, SMS, Social Media marketing etc.
Advantages
From the point of view of the customer or consumer the advantage is that it does not increase the price of the product that they are buying, compared to products that are not marketed using direct marketing techniques. This would involve a price rise due to commission from retailers and wholesalers
From the point of view of the manufacturer it gives them exact and proper feedback about their product in terms of customer reviews as they are communicating with the consumers directly and do not have to depend on information from retailers or any other middlemen involved.
Disadvantages
The disadvantage of direct Marketing is that most people do not like to be approached directly by people who want to sell them something. In other words people hate to be sold too, but they love buying. They feel they will find out about a product when they want to buy it.
From the point of view of the Marketing executive or Marketing Manager they prefer these Methods of direct marketing because you are not wasting any energy, time, or money as they are reaching out to the potential customers directly.
How to use Direct Marketing?
If you are interested in using direct marketing techniques for your business then here is a list of a few methods and how you can use them.
Email Marketing
In today’s world everyone uses emails to communicate thus sending out an email directly to the person is a very effective way to market, but you have to be careful of not spamming them. You should have permission from the person to email them with offers. You can do this by asking them if they are comfortable in providing their contact information so you could send them an email. But you should remember to always allow them an option to unsubscribe or stop the emails.
Telemarketing
This is one method of direct marketing that most people do not like a lot, or do not prefer as they feel they shouldn’t be disturbed anytime of the day asking them if they are interested in buying or using a service or a product. So the best option is to record a voice mail of the offer and send it out to the user and they can block or accept the call according to their wish.
SMS
Another method of direct marketing which is very useful in today’s world is sending out a bulk SMS to a list of potential customers this is better than telemarketing as the customer does not get disturbed and can check the text message later when he feels like.
According to me direct marketing is very effective and useful. But in order to do that you have to build a good relation with the customer before you start sending out any products or offers that they could purcha