8 Rules for Direct Marketing Success

Written By Ted Grigg
DMCG Results

Direct marketing is more science than art

Planning and implementing direct marketing programs for start ups and Fortune 100 companies teaches many things. But these 8 rules for success emerge after working with Microsoft, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, Sherwin-Williams, American Airlines (among many others) as well as numerous small and medium sized companies.

1. Direct marketing is mostly science and partly art. But the science leads the way.

2. Think of your long-term success by prioritizing in this manner.

- Put customers first. Your customers fund future marketing activities. So focus on their needs above all.

- Create products and services that present and future customers need and will generate the margins you need.

- Hire the best talent available for your creative work. Copy is still king in direct response. But don't neglect graphics talent that promptly communicates the meaning of the words.

- Know your market. This includes their demographics and psychographics. This means knowing your customers first and targeting like people in your ongoing promotions. Do you know the size of your target market, how many customers have purchased from you in the last 12 months, how many fell by the wayside and so on? If you don't, then you don't know your customers.

3. Make the most of your time because the market changes quickly.

4. Numbers drive everything in direct marketing. You start with numbers and in the end, make decisions based on numbers.

5. Seasonality is more important than repetition. Spend minimally during your down cycle.

6. If the results aren't there to begin with, then try something totally new. Tweaking things will not get you to where you need to be.

7. Focus on the discipline of direct marketing testing and evaluation. Rely upon hard facts.

8. Treat your channels like your customers do. They use multiple channels to gather product information and respond through several channels. So make sure you integrate your channels with the proper timing and message consistency.

Is there a number 9? If so, what is it?

Ted Grigg

Ted Grigg is a direct response strategist who helps growth-focused companies reduce risk by identifying weak assumptions before they become costly mistakes.

Over the course of his career, Ted has evaluated several hundred million dollars in direct response testing across direct mail, digital, print, television, telephone, and other channels. His work combines direct response strategy, acquisition economics, customer analysis, creative evaluation, offer development, and disciplined testing.

Ted has worked on both the client and agency sides of the business. That experience gives him a practical understanding of the pressures facing executives, marketing teams, agencies, and service providers—and of the problems that arise when activity, media volume, or creative preference replaces a clear economic objective.

His consulting work helps organizations examine such questions as:

  • Are acquisition goals economically realistic?

  • Is the allowable Cost Per Sale supported by customer value?

  • Are targeting, offers, creative, media, and response paths working together?

  • Are tests structured to produce reliable business decisions?

  • Are unproven assumptions being treated as facts?

  • Is the organization measuring sales outcomes rather than convenient proxies?

Ted’s experience includes the development of direct mail and multichannel acquisition programs for insurance, healthcare, financial services, technology, nonprofit, manufacturing, retail, transportation, communications, government, and business-to-business organizations.

For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, he developed a direct mail format that defeated established controls and helped expand the productive use of compiled prospect lists from less than 10 percent to more than 30 percent of total direct mail circulation within one year. He also planned Medicare lead-generation programs for more than 60 regional and national HMO and PPO organizations, with some programs exceeding sales projections by as much as 60 percent.

Ted founded Wyse Direct, a direct marketing division of Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, where he developed acquisition programs and helped launch a new technology product for Seiko Instruments by generating a predictable flow of qualified sales leads for its national sales organization. As vice president of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, he helped broaden the agency’s strategic capabilities and pursue new commercial and fundraising opportunities.

He is the author of The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan—A Step-by-Step Guide, published by Executive Enterprises, and has written numerous articles and conducted webinars on direct response strategy, testing, creative development, and marketing economics.

Ted earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Abilene Christian University and completed two years of graduate study at Texas Tech University. He is the founder of DMCG, LLC.

http://www.dmcgresults.com
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