Direct Marketing Verus Social Media: Which Is Better?
Direct marketing is a long proven method for reaching a specific audience. With new media or social media marketing, there sometimed becomes confusion with regard to which is better - to stick with the tried and true, or to attempt something different? In a vacuum, they may both seem great ways to reach an audience, but in reality, they are very different. To evaluate these two different ways of reaching an audience is difficult unless you consider return on marketing investment. The investment may be time or dollars, but typically management wants to know which dollars lead to sales or conversions.
When determining the best use of marketing dollars and marketing time, comparing conversions is a great tool. Dependent upon how your direct marketing dollars are invested, conversions can be between 0 to 15%. It's much more difficult to evaluate conversions that are a direct result from social media. Even if social media marketing doesn't have a "price" associated, there is an investment in time that can be calculated to evaluate the 'cost'.
How can you improve conversions?
To improve conversions, using psychological triggers can be an effective tool if used appropriately. For example, a personalized communication will yield a better open rate and prove more effective than a generic announcement. The degree of personalization is the variable. With so much information readily available through data collection services, it’s much easier to sort and differentiate offers by the relative appeal to the recipient.
Understanding behavior and how different offers can correlate into improved conversions is also helpful to improve return on investment. Sending an outbound direct mail piece without collecting information on conversions is a truly missed opportunity. Increasing average ticket could be a matter of bundling offers that have universal appeal as well as adding offers that have specific appeal to the target. Demographics and psychographics assist in evaluating which offers to share with which prospects.
Inbound marketing is using social media and other social networking devices to position your message to be found. How does direct marketing impact inbound marketing? Are these mutually exclusive concepts?
By integrating traditional media with social media, potentially the best of both can evolved into a strong message and program. New media techniques such as QR codes which can be imprinted or embedded to drive mobile messages to a landing page are new ways of incorporating the social web and mobile internet marketing techniques with the power of personalized communications to prospects. The encouraging result of smart marketing is increased conversions and lower cost per conversion, which implies improved return on investment.
In short, it may not be neccessary to select only one methodology to reach your customer. Creating a marketing plan with specific goals and metrics, then evaluating progress towards that goal utilizing various marketing channels may be the best overall strategy.
If in doubt about how to structure your next marketing campaign, we would be happy to offer a consultation to discuss your program and needs.
Wilde Agency specializes in creating direct marketing campaigns which harness the psychological triggers that drive consumer behavior.