The Difference Between General Advertising and Direct Marketing

Written By Ted Grigg

One way to differentiate these two approaches is to look at how they are evaluated. General advertising is designed to increase awareness and direct is evaluated on the basis of sales results. In reality, direct marketing efforts support the brand and general advertising ultimately increases response rates.

Over time, direct marketing became synonymous with direct mail marketing. Unfortunately, that narrow application to direct marketing is flawed.

The primary difference between general and direct appears to be in the area of the results they are expected to produce.

As shown in the following flow charts, both general advertising and direct marketing use all media. They are both directed to the same target markets. And they must both produce sales.

DMCG Results

For general advertisers, the operational objective is not to increase sales, but rather to position the product and create an environment conducive to sales. And for many general advertising pros, increasing sales becomes an afterthought or a hoped for consequence of properly positioning the product in a sea of competitors.

In effect, general advertising is truly an indirect selling strategy as opposed to direct marketing.

But here's the rub – some direct marketers believe (and rightfully so, I think) that behavior change may actually position the product and build its awareness while simultaneously promoting an immediate sale.

Direct marketers pay attention to the brand and the long term impact of their messaging. But they live or die by the sales coming out of every campaign. They design everything to produce a sale now rather than in some distant future.

By the same token, direct marketers want to collect sales information on each customer knowing that the big profits come from repeat customer sales and relationship building rather than first time sales. General advertisers typically do not deal with customer databases, CRM or sales tracking by channel or campaign.

Direct marketers think long term. But they also think short term ROI.

If I communicate nothing else about the difference between direct marketing and general advertising, it is this. Direct marketing is not a channel or a medium like direct mail, but it is a different way of approaching an advertiser's sales objectives over both the short and long term.

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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