Direct Marketing

Introduction to Direct Marketing

Ozair Hanafi, Managing Driector of Orient Direct, a McCann-Erickson company, defines the discipline as such:

    • "Direct Marketing is any marketing activity which creates and sustains a measurable direct relationship between you and your prospect or customer.
    • "Direct Marketing is based on a strategy of one to one.
    • "It is not just a medium like Direct Mail. It is not just a channel of distribution like Mail Order. It is these and more. It is a way of marketing, it is a method of Marketing.
    • "Direct Marketing empowers you to capture and capitalise on customers and adds profits to almost any business large or small.
    • "The most important word in Direct Marketing is 'measurable'. For if response can not be measured; if cost and income cannot be weighed and assessed, it's not direct marketing!
    • "Direct Marketing is the best way to win and maintain customers." [1]

Thus direct marketing enables the company to create an ongoing relationship with the customer. Ozair Hanafi puts it thus,

Through Direct Marketing we generate a dialogue between our prospect and ourselves.

    • "Direct Marketing is Relationship Marketing. It is affinity marketing.
    • "Before approaching a customer or a prospect, we gather enough information about him or her. We have the profile of the customer before us. By knowing as much about him as we should we trigger the right response from our prospect." - Thus as we saw in Prelude, direct marketing today is targeted to the only the right respondent, the one who would be interested in the product or service.

With the advent of new media, direct marketing has been evolving the world over. This evolution has also reached Pakistani shores, with direct marketing becoming an exciting new medium available to Pakistani marketers today. However, to date, direct marketing remains a medium to be used in conjunction with others – not a sole or even major media vehicle for any... [continues]

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