Direct Response Drives the Internet

Written By Ted Grigg

The terms direct response and direct marketing are used interchangeably. They are strategic concepts. When fully understood, direct response is really one-to-one marketing.

The Internet per se is nothing more than a medium. DRTV, direct mail, telemarketing, email, print and the Internet are media that direct marketers use to implement the direct marketing strategy. 

DMCG Results

The direct marketing strategy is "how" you go about selling services or products. It is accountable direct response advertising because all sales are tracked by offer, source and customer. 

The Internet represents the ultimate tool for direct response marketers who strive to build relationships and sell products with the greatest efficiency possible. 

The Internet begs for response in the form of an Internet discussion or transaction. 

Increasingly, the Internet supplants the inbound telemarketing medium. 

Search is a response when the search engine seeks to find relevant information. This information is a precursor to the actual sale. It is a lead. Though the lead quality varies tremendously depending upon how well the inquiry converts to a sale. 

The Internet is used as a PR tool and helps to build a brand's reputation. But these strategies merely support the ultimate goal -- selling products, raising funds or increasing sources of revenue.

Always bear in mind that a strategy or a combination of strategies support the goal. Image building, awareness, branding, positioning and direct marketing all represent strategies that are secondary to the goal. Some marketers get caught up so deeply in branding, for example, that they tend to make it the goal rather than subjecting it to the selling goal. 

The goal always trumps the strategy. 

Internet marketers often fail in this regard. They view the Internet as a strategy when it is nothing more than a medium on steroids. In fact, the Internet usually works best as a part of the media strategy. Unfortunately some online practitioners want to make it the only medium when a media mix would produce far better results.

The bottom line: direct response is a key strategy that drives the Internet rather than the other way around.

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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