ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DIRECT MARKETING
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How To Deliver the Right Message to the Right Target for the Best ResultsISBN: 1932531718, 260 pages. Rating: |
- (3 out of 5) This is Entrepreneur Magazine’ Ultimate Guide to Direct Marketing, which covers all areas of direct marketing. Direct Marketing itself motivates a prospect or customer to take a necessary action, whether that is to respond, click a web link, buy a product or gather information.
The ‘Ultimate Guide to Direct Marketing’ book provides four points as its main foundation. The Message, The Vehicle, The Target and Timing and Frequency. Direct Marketing has often been described as one of the most cost effective ways to sell products and services to target markets. This book contains tips, methods, strategies, tactics, plans and techniques that produce results from the use of direct marketing.
‘Ultimate Guide to Direct Marketing’ shows you how to increase response rates and the kind of marketing that is best suited to your business. The book is divided into eight chapters, the first of which covers direct marketing basics and the different type of direct marketing. The second chapter is entitled ‘The Marketing Target’ this chapter discusses your market and who you will be directing your marketing to, such as your customer lists and if you use in-house lists or purchase name and address data.
The third chapter discusses direct mail and direct mail formats such as letters, postcards, dimensional mail, telemarketing and the use of catalogues. The chapter covers the advantages and disadvantages of all of these formats and things to consider when using a particular direct mail format.
Chapter four is all about direct email marketing, and covers various types of email marketing such as newsletters, ezines and automated email messages. The whole chapter tells you how to improve your email marketing, the pros and cons of email marketing and how to put together the best subject line, email content as well as the best time to send your emails.
Chapter seven entitled ‘Message Offers and Responses’ was probably the best chapter in my mind, as it seems to put together all the main tips from the whole book into one chapter, so this chapter is great as a reference.
This chapter includes such tips as making sure you personalise your direct mail, smother your communication with benefit points, as benefits sell, but features only tell. There are hundreds of great tips in this chapter.
Overall ‘Ultimate Guide to Direct Marketing’ is a good book which covers direct marketing really well, I would have prefered it if the book covered more online selling, but the book never said it was only about online marketing, also the book is quite American biased when it comes to the details about purchasing customer/mailing lists, but otherwise the book has a great deal of tips and good advice that will help you in your direct marketing efforts.