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How Direct Marketing can Help YOUR Business! by Kate Naylor, Freelance Copywriter

Direct Marketing... explained!

Once the poor relative of advertising, direct marketing is enjoying a massive revival as the online community catches on to its potential. So what's direct marketing all about? Kate Naylor, freelance copywriter and direct marketing fan, explains.

Direct Marketing - sometimes called Direct Response or Below the Line marketing - covers anything that elicits a response from the reader or viewer. DM campaigns always include a form to fill in, a number to call, a website or specific landing page to visit or an email address to contact. The idea is to persuade people to ask for more details or actually buy off the page, from a mailing, via a website or by email with no further ado.   

Because you always include a means for people to respond you know exactly how much money you've made from a DM campaign. You can track back and draw firm, accurate conclusions about how well (or not!) your campaign has performed.

Advertising and branding - also known as Above the Line - is a completely different kettle of fish. You can spend an absolute fortune on clever, obscure, arty TV ads but unless you've included a response mechanism, you can never be certain whether or not the campaign worked in terms of Return On Investment.  

You know what you've spent. But you can't tell how much profit you've made as a direct result of your spend. You aren't asking people to buy your products or services in particular. You're asking people to admire and desire your brand in general, perhaps going back and buying later because they've been inspired.

Here's a short list of media that fall under the DM banner:

• Email marketing
• Direct response newspaper / magazine adverts and advertorials
• DRTV - direct response TV where the ad includes a call to action / contact details
• DRV - direct response video - an increasingly popular online medium
• Direct mail
• Any online advertising campaign that incorporates a link
• Ecommerce
• Any website through which you can buy products or services!   

Want to know more? The UK's best best known and best loved DM guru is my hero, Drayton Bird. Buy one of his many excellent books if you want to discover more. Like all good direct marketers he writes in plain English so you'll soon pick up the basics!

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Kate Naylor is a freelance copywriter with more than twenty years' experience in direct marketing. She delivers intelligent, commercially powerful copy... beautifully written, bang on schedule, to budget.