Chapter 14
Direct and Online Marketing: Building Direct Customer Relationships
DIRECT MARKETING: direct connections with carefully targeted individual
consumers to both obtain an immediate response and cultivate lasting
customer relationships. It usually seeks a direct, immediate, and measurable
consumer response.
Direct marketers communicate directly with customers, often on a one-to-one,
interactive basis. Using detailed databases, they tailor their marketing offers
and communications to the needs of narrowly defined segments or even
individual buyers.
Most companies use direct marketing as a supplementary channel or medium.
Examples of direct marketing are: DVDs and other materials mailed directly to
consumers with information about the product, catalogs, telemarketers, ect.
But, with the technological advances, other companies use it as their only
approach to the consumer. Examples: Dell, [Link], eBay…
Direct marketing has become the fastest-growing form of marketing, spending
an average of $166.5 billion on 2009. It continues to become more Web
oriented, and Internet marketing is claiming a fast-growing share of direct
marketing spending and sales.
Benefits to Buyers
It is convenient, easy, and private. Direct marketers never close their doors,
and customers don’t have to battle traffic, find parking space, and trek through
stores to find products. It gives buyers ready access to a wealth of products
and it gives buyers access to a wealth of comparative information about
companies, products, and competitors. Finally, it is interactive and immediate
—buyers can interact with sellers by phone or on the seller’s Web site to create
exactly the configuration of information, products, or services they desire, and
then order them on the spot. Direct Marketing offers more control to the
customer.
Benefits to Seller
It is a powerful tool for building customer relationships. Using database
marketing, today’s marketers can target small groups or individual consumers
and promote their offers through personalized communications. Because of the
one-to-one nature of direct marketing, companies can interact with customers
by phone or online, learn more about their needs, and tailor products and
Chapter 14
Direct and Online Marketing: Building Direct Customer Relationships
services to specific customer tastes. It also offers sellers a low-cost, efficient,
speedy alternative for reaching their markets. Direct marketers, like Dell and
[Link], avoid the expense of maintaining a store and the related costs of
rent, insurance, and utilities, passing the savings along to customers. Finally,
direct marketing gives sellers access to buyers that they could not reach
through other channels.
Customer Databases and Direct Marketing
A customer database is an organized collection of comprehensive data about
individual customers or prospects, including geographic, demographic,
psychographic, and behavioral data. A good customer database can be a potent
relationship-building tool. Companies use their databases to locate good
potential customers and to generate sales leads. They can mine their databases
to learn about customers in detail, and then fine-tune their market offering and
communications to the special preference and behaviors of target segments or
individuals. In all, a company’s database can be an important tool for building
stronger long-term customer relationships.
FORMS OF DIRECT MARKETING
Direct-Mail Marketing
Direct-mail marketing involves sending an
offer, announcement, reminder, or other
item to a person at a particular address.
Using highly selective mailing lists, direct
marketers send out millions of mail pieces
each year—letters, catalogs, ads, brochures,
samples. CDs and DVDs, and other
“salesperson with wings”. Direct mailing is
by far the largest direct marketing medium.
The DMA reports that direct mail (including
both catalog and noncatalog mail) drives more than a third of all U.S. direct
marketing sales.
Catalog Marketing
Advances in technology, along with the move toward personalized, one-to-one
marketing have resulted in exciting changes in catalog marketing, the direct
marketing through print, video, or digital catalogs that are mailed to select
customers, made available in stores, or presented online. More and more
Chapter 14
Direct and Online Marketing: Building Direct Customer Relationships
catalogs are going digital. A variety of Web-only catalogers have emerged, and
most print catalogers have added Web-based catalogs to their marketing mixes.
One study found that consumers now make 38 percent of their catalog
purchases online. Web-based catalogs eliminate production, printing, and
mailing costs. And whereas print-catalog space is limited, online catalogs can
offer an almost unlimited amount of merchandise. Finally, online catalogs
allow real-time merchandising—products and features can be added or
removed as needed and prices can be adjusted instantly to match demand.
However, despite the advantages of Web-based catalogs, as your overstuffed
mailbox may suggest, printed catalogs are still thriving. It turns out that
printed catalogs are still one of the best ways to convince consumers to use the
online versions. And printed catalogs can create emotional connections with
customers that Web-based sales spaces simply can’t.
Telephone Marketing
Telephone marketing involves using the telephone to sell directly to consumers
and business customers. Marketers use outbound telephone marketing to sell
directly to customers and businesses. They use inbound toll-free 800 numbers
to receive orders from television and print ads, direct mail, or catalogs. Properly
designed and targeted telemarketing provides many benefits, including
purchasing convenience and increased product and service information.
However, the explosion in unsolicited outbound telephone marketing over the
years annoyed many consumers, who objected to the almost daily “junk phone
calls” that pull them away from the dinner table or fill the answering machine.
Do-not-call legislation has hurt the telemarketing industry, but not all that
much. Telemarketing also remains a major fundraising tool for nonprofit
groups.
Direct-Response television Marketing
This method of direct marketing takes on two forms
1. Direct-response television advertising (infomercials): often are 60 to 120
seconds long, persuasively describes a product and gives customers a
toll-free number or Website for ordering. Direct-response TV commercials
are usually cheaper to make and the media purchase is less costly.
2. Home shopping channels: television programs or entire channels
dedicated to selling goods and services. Program hosts chat with viewers
by phone and offer products ranging from jewelry, lamps, collectible
dolls, and clothing to power tools and consumer electronics.
Chapter 14
Direct and Online Marketing: Building Direct Customer Relationships
Kiosk Marketing
As consumers become more and more comfortable with computer and digital
technologies, many companies are placing information and ordering machines
in stores, airports, and other locations. Kiosks are popping up everywhere
these days, from self-service hotel and airline check-in devices to in-store
ordering kiosks that let you order merchandise not carried in the store.
New digital direct marketing technologies
1. Mobile Phone Marketing: many marketers view mobile phones as the
next big direct marketing medium. A growth of consumers are using
their cell phones as a “third screen” for text messaging, surfing the
wireless Web, watching downloaded videos and shows, and checking e-
mail.
2. Podcasts and Vodcasts: consumers can download audio files (podcasts)
or video files (vodcasts) via the Internet to an Ipod or other handler and
then listen or view them whenever or wherever they wish.
3. Interactive TV: This lets viewers interact with television programming
and advertising using their remote controls. It gives marketers an
opportunity to reach targeted audiences in an interactive, more involving
way.
Online Marketing
Muchof the world’s business today is carried out over digital networks that
connect people and companies. The Internet connects users of all types all
around the world to each other and to an amazingly large information
repository. The Web has fundamentally changed customers’ notions of
convenience, speed, price, product information, and service. As a result, it has
given marketers a whole new way to create value for customers and build
relationships with them.
El resto del capitulo es de como hacer un canal eficiente por el internet, pero la
profesora nunca hablo sobre esto. Si desean que lo integre al repaso me avisan,
pero no creo que sea pertinente.