Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Every day, we’re on the receiving end of a direct marketing campaign. We just might not know it.

In this article, you’ll learn the benefits of a direct marketing strategy, how it works, and the benefits of leveraging it.

The Benefits of Direct Marketing
There are several key benefits to implementing a direct marketing strategy:

Personalized messaging: With direct marketing, you can send highly personalized messages to your target market, increasing the likelihood that they’ll take action.
Increased ROI: Because direct marketing is so targeted and specific, it often has a higher ROI than indirect marketing.
Measurable: This approach is also measurable, which allow you to gain valuable insights on what worked, what didn’t, and what to do in the future. 

How to Create a Direct Marketing Strategy
Now that you know the benefits of direct marketing, it’s time to learn how to create a direct marketing strategy. Here are the steps you need to take:
1. Define your target market.
Creating a direct marketing strategy can be a bit daunting, but step one is always to identify your target market.
This will help you determine what type of medium to use for your campaign as well as what type of message will resonate.
Start by asking yourself who your ideal customer is. What are their demographics? What do they like and dislike? What motivates them?
Keep in mind that your target market shouldn’t be everyone. In fact, the more specific you are, the better your strategy will be as it will resonate with a specific type of consumer.
By narrowing your focus, you can create a stronger connection with your audience and see better results from your marketing efforts.
Once you have a good understanding of your target market, you can start to craft a marketing strategy that will reach them directly.
2. Research your competition.
Once you know who your target market is, it’s time to research your competition. This will give you a good starting point for your own campaign.
See what type of direct marketing campaigns they’re running and what’s working well for them.
What are they doing that’s working well? What could be improved? Understanding their strengths and weaknesses will help you develop a stronger strategy of your own.
From there, you can brainstorm how you can make it better.
3. Choose your direct marketing channels.
When creating a direct marketing strategy, one of the most important steps is to choose the right channels.
There are a variety of options available, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
To make the best choice, you’ll need to consider your target audience, your budget, and your goals.
Some common direct marketing channels include:

Email
Social media
Text messages
Websites/landing pages
Print ads (newspapers, magazines)

One popular option is email marketing. This can be an effective way to reach a large number of people quickly and relatively cheaply.
However, it can be difficult to stand out in someone’s inbox, and there’s always the risk that your message will be ignored or deleted.
Another option is direct mail. This can be a more personal way to reach your target audience, and it can be very effective if done correctly.
However, it can be more expensive than other methods, and there’s no guarantee that your message will be seen.
Ultimately, the best way to choose direct marketing channels is to experiment with different options and see what works best for your business.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, so don’t be afraid to try something new.
4. Develop your offer and create your assets.
Your offer is what you’re promoting to your target market. It could be a discount, a free trial, or something else entirely.
Whatever it is, make sure it’s valuable and relevant to your target market.
From there, you can move on to creating your assets.
This is the ad, email, flyer, or other that you’ll be using in your campaign. If there’s no budget to hire a designer, leverage tools like Canva to create a high-quality, on-brand design. 
5. Test, measure, and refine.
Once you’ve launched your direct marketing campaign, it’s important to test, measure, and refine it to ensure maximum effectiveness.
Today, direct marketers now have access to a wealth of data that can be used to measure the success of their campaigns.
By analyzing this data, you can optimize your approach and improve your results.
You’ll want to focus on how many users converted as well as where they dropped off in the conversion path. That could indicate a point of friction that you’ll want to address, like a long form, vague copy, or missing CTA.
Direct Marketing Examples
Here are a few examples of direct marketing in action:

A postcard in the mail from a company offering a discount on their products.
An email from an online retailer with a special offer for subscribers.
A text message from a cell phone company about a new plan.

As you can see, direct marketing can take many different forms. The important thing is to choose the right medium for your target market and offer them something that they’ll find valuable.
If you’re looking for a cost-effective way to reach your target market, direct marketing is a great option.
With a little planning and creativity, you can create a direct marketing campaign that will generate results.

Regarding digital marketing, retailers have myriad options to explore in driving shoppers to take the ultimate action on their eCommerce stores: buying the products they’re offering. But one digital marketing channel that has consistently done the job better than others is good ol’ email. Surprised? Don’t take our word for it. DigitalCommerce360 and Bizzare Insights…
The post Study Confirms: Email is Still the Top Marketing Channel appeared first on Benchmark Email.

We want to store info at 1. company level (could go upto 500k records, not necessarily unique records, there could be duplicates) 2. at a contact level which will have associated company name (at the moment I think domain name could be unique identifier between two tables among other possible options, like company name, company id) number of contacts right now are at least 150k-200k also 3. Campaign level data, basically we want to run cold email campaigns on this database and measure success continuously on different dimensions like size, industry etc. Things to be considered 1. We want to write to these tables on running basis 2. We want to create a bridge between this database and our Crm to write latest stage in funnel for these companies, prospect, qualified, signed up, customer etc. 3. Should be fairly easy to analyse the data of all 3 tables 4. Shouldn’t be too costly like hubspot We are currently using spreadsheets stored on different locations for different products we offer submitted by /u/unconsciousquasar [link] [comments]

For entrepreneur Assie Khoussa, the boundaries between work and personal life are almost nonexistent. Some of this industriousness comes from necessity – running a baby brand as a single mother is no easy feat, requiring Assie to be in work mode 24/7. But, the success of her small business also stems from Assie’s ability to show up as herself 100 percent of the time. In fact, Eizzy Baby originated because of the entrepreneur’s relatability. “Eizzy Baby really started from me sharing things that I was using every day with my son and thinking nothing of it,” Assie said. “I was going on my personal page on Instagram, sharing ‘I just got this snack cup,’ And then all my parent friends were like, ‘Wow, where did you get it from?’”In 2020, amid a pandemic, Assie officially launched Eizzy Baby and started selling silicone bibs, snack cups, and suction plates, among other items. A core tenet for the brand is to provide durable and nontoxic products that make parents’ lives easier and simpler. And while Eizzy Baby has seen a lot of success, it hasn’t always been an easy road for Assie, the small business’s one and only employee. Still, two years in, Eizzy Baby has already won over tons of loyal customers.If you ask Assie what her game plan has been, she’ll tell you that there is no grand strategy she follows. And that’s what’s most refreshing about Eizzy Baby – its growth can mostly be credited to Assie’s authenticity. She’s easily connected with her customers through Instagram by sharing her own experiences as a mother, using very few paid advertising and marketing efforts. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Eizzy Baby | Baby Products ™️ (@eizzybaby) This realness seeps into everything Assie does and is a big reason why she resonates with so many, including Tracy Jabbal, one of Eizzy Baby’s longtime customers.“To support a real person — you get such a different sense of [Assie] and how she’s taking care of [her son] Noah and wants to do good for herself and have a productive, successful business,” Tracy said.And while Assie’s reality as a single mom and small-business owner may not always be picture perfect, the entrepreneur has no intention of filtering herself. “Instagram tends to be so perfect,” she said. “I live more of a TikTok life where it’s raw, uncut, unedited.”Finding her footing At first, Assie wanted to sell diaper bags. She ordered a ton of inventory and thought customers would buy up her products like hotcakes…until they didn’t. This initial miscalculation didn’t stop her, however. “I always had a lot of grit,” Assie said. “I don’t really take no for an answer, especially when it’s something I want in life. So I just picked back up and tried something different.”She remembered specific items that she had casually shared on her Instagram Stories – including baby plates – that seemed to resonate most with her followers. This catapulted what would become Eizzy Baby, but there were still some hurdles Assie had to overcome. Specifically, the entrepreneur wished that she trusted herself more when Eizzy Baby was in its infancy. As she got her brand up and running, she encountered marketing and PR agencies who tried to convince Assie they had Eizzy Baby’s best interest at heart.  “When I first started, I was believing in everybody that came to me, and was like, ‘hey, I can do this for your business. And I could do that.’ That was hard for me,” Assie said. “I lost a lot of money that way.”Quickly, however, Assie learned to rely on herself, and to this day, she manages every aspect of Eizzy Baby – from marketing to buying to customer service – on her own. As an entrepreneur, she’s also resourceful and takes advantage of free training whenever possible, like when she recently participated in a live website audit that Shopify offered to small businesses. Eventually, Assie was able to hire her first employee, who helped with Eizzy Baby’s social media and blog. However, in the spring of 2022, the business slowed down, and Assie had to cut back and let her first employee go. This also coincided with Assie’s birthday and a time when the mom and business owner was feeling extremely burned out. While this moment was frustrating, the entrepreneur picked herself back up. “I just gave myself grace… I allowed myself to fall,” Assie said. “And then go back to figuring out how I can be more creative and give myself the okay to continue to show up as myself.”Creating community onlineWith nearly 5,000 followers, Eizzy Baby’s Instagram account is where Assie connects with her customers the most – usually on Instagram Stories or through her many Reels. For Tracy, Assie’s depiction of certain parenting situations – like the struggle of hiding snacks from your kids – was just one of the reasons she became a fan of the brand. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Eizzy Baby | Baby Products ™️ (@eizzybaby) “[Assie] does a lot of really funny, super relatable Reels and polls,” Tracy said. “And as a mother, I can really connect to that. You get this feeling she’s such a genuine person.”But the entrepreneur also uses social media to collect customer feedback and opinions on new colors and designs for her snack cups and bibs. She’s even joked that she owes all her Instagram followers a certain percentage of the profits since they’ve helped shape so many Eizzy Baby products. In this way, Assie has been building in public and including her community in on her small business’s journey. And Instagram is not the only platform where Assie has cultivated this kind of relationship with her customers. She’s also used Facebook Groups, specifically parenting ones, to connect with like-minded individuals. By joining these online spaces, Assie has been able to network with parents and introduce her brand as a solution to some of the challenges they face. This aligns with her goal to create products that will ultimately help moms and dads spend more time with their kids.“The theme for all of my products is simple and easy,” Assie said. “Like, just cut off as much stress as possible. So [Eizzy Baby products] make your life as a mom and as a parent just a little bit easier.”Not only do customers enjoy Assie’s social media presence, but they also genuinely like Eizzy Baby’s products. As a mom of children ages two and five years old, Tracy has tested dozens of baby brands from the U.S. and Europe and has yet to find one that’s stood up to Eizzy Baby. In particular, she especially appreciates the Snack Cup’s collapsible design and spill proof functionality. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Eizzy Baby | Baby Products ™️ (@eizzybaby) “Of all the things that we’ve tried, from Target, Amazon, stores in Europe, [Eizzy Baby’s] stuff has easily been favorites in terms of durability and longevity. It’s outlasted everything else,” Tracy said.By being vulnerable and sharing both the ups and downs of parenthood, Assie has been able to successfully sell her brand, but more importantly, she’s also built a community with her followers. “I noticed that whenever I show up — it’s just me. No eyebrows on, nothing. I get more engagement, I get more love, I get more support, I get more buyers,” she said. “The best part is  I get to have this business and still be a mom, still be myself, and still show the hot mess that happens in the background.”Making an impactWhile running a small business is already hectic enough, it was still important for Assie to include a charitable component to her brand. On Eizzy Baby’s homepage is a tab for an organization called Angel House International, which provides resources for young women in Uganda.  Assie first worked with Angel House International years earlier when she was a part of a local foundation that provided meals on wheels and other services to her community. There, she watched a presentation on the organization and learned about the difficulties facing many Ugandan girls and young women, including growing up in poverty, dealing with gender discrimination and sexual violence, and having to drop out of school at a young age. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Eizzy Baby | Baby Products ™️ (@eizzybaby) “Growing up in Senegal, I felt so free as a child. I had no worries,” Assie said. “And I couldn’t imagine having someone go through some of those things.”Once Eizzy Baby was up and running, Assie knew she wanted to support this cause in any way she could. After learning the group was building a facility and dormitory for the girls, Assie started advertising Angel House International’s Beads of Hope – bracelets made by the girls themselves – on Eizzy Baby’s site and social media. 100 percent of the contributions from the beads go directly to helping and empowering girls in Uganda. Along with spreading the word about Angel House International, Assie has donated proceeds from certain Eizzy Baby sales to the organization. Incorporating this social impact into her brand was a natural move for the small-business owner. “It was seamless. I’ve worked with [Angel House International] in the past and fell in love with the organization,” Assie said. “It was just something I could do to create impact every single day with our sales.”Though Eizzy Baby provides parents with non-toxic and ethically sourced products, it’s clear that for Assie, her brand is about so much more than that. It’s a way for her to connect with other moms, raise awareness for deserving causes, and most importantly, a space for the entrepreneur to be her true self.

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