Direct marketing approaches produce an excellent result when executed properly. But surprisingly, most of the businesses fail to reap the desired outcome out of it. If you are one among them, you may wonder why it hasn’t worked for you as expected. There might be several reasons for your direct marketing downfall such as targeting the wrong audience, wrong scheduling of campaign execution, unfitting metrics to measure the performance, and so on. Utilize the below-mentioned suggestions if you have committed any of the above mistakes or unsure of where you might have gone wrong.
Here are ten simple yet most effective ways to improve your B2B direct marketing strategy:
Table of Contents
1. Get an Accurate Mailing List
An up-to-date and highly accurate mailing list forms a strong foundation for your marketing campaigns. Such lists let you track previous purchases and thereby offers a clear insight into a person’s buying behavior. With this information, you can lure the customers or potential clients easily into your business by delivering a custom service that satisfies their business needs. You can either make use of an in-house list, which contains the data of your past and existing customers or purchase a targeted mailing list from trustworthy vendors. With the right list, firms can maximize their advertising benefits in a short span.
2. Study the Patterns Wisely
As customers travel along the path to purchase, you may witness both the successes and failures on the way. Studying customer’s behavior pattern will explain why those successes and failures happen and how to reach specific outcomes. So, always look for such patterns in your database. It gives insights into a person’s purchasing behavior, and you can quickly determine the customer activity and come up with the targeted messages that keep the customers engaged, and loyal throughout.
As per the research report by McKinsey, companies that utilize such behavior data to produce behavioral insights outpace peers by more than 25 percent in gross margin and at least 85 percent in sales growth.
3. Employ Personalization Tactics
Personalization forms the most significant component of a direct marketing campaign. Relevant and targeted messages are more likely to trigger a purchase in the B2B industry. Promoting the right products to the customers will help you stand apart from your competitors and also creates a robust brand loyalty that lasts longer. A simpler approach to personalize your direct marketing tactics is by addressing the recipient by name to give your campaign a human touch. Such personalized letters convey the fact that you value your customer always.
4. Provide Real Value to the Prospects
Start adding value to your B2B direct marketing strategies if you wish to see people responding to your campaign efforts. With the right discounts, gifts, coupons, and other offers, you can compel the audience to buy from you. Make sure your offers are time-limited so buyers can act immediately than waiting for others to provide the same service at less cost. Such methods will maximize the campaign results and also makes it easy for you to measure the outcome of the promotions.
5. Simplify Your Promotional Content
Most of the B2B executives or professionals simply scan your sales letter to learn how your product or service benefits them. They only read it to see if something is of interest to their company. Therefore, make your ad copy short and simple. Make it easy to read. Indent the paragraphs and use bullet points if possible. If the mechanics of your product or the current offer is more involved, you can come up with a short summary that your recipients can read through quickly.
6. Master the Skills of Writing Good Copy
When writing any of your direct marketing advertising copy, make sure that your primary focus is on the benefits and not on the product features. For instance, if you are selling manufacturing appliances, focus on how manufacturers will be able to save time and resources. So, while crafting a message or trying to penetrate any market – the first question you need to answer is “what do my recipients want?” You should not send them a mail that pushes them to buy from you. To be successful, you must always consider the other way around. Consider what your prospect needs and then come up with a relevant copy which addresses those needs.
7. Pick the Right Medium for Communication
If you have studied your buyer’s behavior pattern, you will know what exactly your customers expect from you. Based on their requirement, choose the right direct marketing medium to maximize the engagement rate. For instance, some of your prospects may respond well to a postcard, whereas some others to the brochure, or sales letter. Hence test different mediums and determine the best out of it for your message. So you can rightly allocate your efforts to reaching the audience via right medium at the right time.
8. Integrate Multiple Channels
It is always a good thing to integrate your direct marketing strategy with other approaches such as digital marketing. According to researchers, the firms that use direct mail along with one or more digital marketing strategies experience up to 118% rise in response rate compared to the businesses that employ only direct mail. Therefore, plan your campaigns accordingly. Make sure you release the offers in all the channels (you chose to use) at the same time. It provides multiple ways for your customers to respond. Such retargeting will help you reap the most out of your promotional efforts and experience higher results.
9. Measure Campaign Performance
It is crucial to test the effectiveness of your direct marketing strategy. Your previous strategy might have worked well in the past, but that doesn’t mean you need to follow the same old rules, or there isn’t any better option to try. Testing helps you in determining the finest choice for your campaign. If you find any glitches in your past performance, tweak as necessary to get the desired results. Three common ways to measure direct marketing performance are:
- Include specific directions for your recipients to communicate with you. For instance, use different code for every customer or provide QR code to redirect them to your website quickly.
- Send your promotional content to a group of the target audience and compare the response rate.
- Create a unique offer for your customers to track the impact of your campaign.
10. Follow Up Always
It is one of the most overlooked B2B direct marketing strategies. But to obtain more sales, business owners must follow up with their prospects often. It can be a personalized postcard or sales letter that acts as a gentle reminder for recipients to take action. In some instances, you can also do follow-up phone calls if you have sufficient permission. If you are unsure how often should you follow up with your clients, we recommend you to ask your clients itself. You can ask them how often they want to hear from you on a scale of 1 to 10.
Closing Note
If you have tried direct marketing in the past and it did not work for you, or you are planning to begin with the direct marketing campaign from scratch, it is vital to follow the tactics mentioned in this blog. You can either use direct marketing all alone or integrate it with other approaches. The choice is entirely yours. So, make some time and study these tips to determine which works best for your business. Plan your promotions accordingly, and you will likely find an immediate progress in your campaign results.
