Direct marketing to consumer:

A targeted audience
means higher sales

The term "direct marketing to consumer" means making a direct link from the advertiser to the individual consumer with the enticement and means to buy goods or services.

This direct sales route is usually accomplished without using the public media of newspapers, radio or tv and its massive audiences.

From a big picture viewpoint, perhaps the purest form of the direct marketing to consumer term would be at a retail in-store promotional display where the customer identifies him or herself by just being present in the facility.

The display gets the individual customer to notice an item and hopefully motivates them enough to make a purchase.

Today, even small business marketers like yourself are able to use this direct path to sales because the buying habits and locations of most consumers can be identified and segmented into small groups.

Then you can use the thousands upon thousands of mailing lists, telephone listings and e-mail addresses that are readily available to find whatever and whomever you, the small business owner desires.

Mailing lists have been around for years and years, but with today's computer power, all sorts of specialized lists can be harvested from the main data-bases maintained by all of the major list houses.

Financial and drug marketers, on a larger scale, use sophisticated mathematics to obtain and maintain their mailing, phone and e-mail lists. The goal is to keep the lists "clean" of outdated or incorrect information to increase accuracy and response.

Small businesses can also buy these lists quite reasonably right over the internet and download them to your computer for use.

A highly specialized list can cost more per thousand names than a non-descript list of consumer names. But it pays off in the long run because you are sending your message only to the people most likely to respond. Not everyone wants everything!

Naturally, your own small business customer and prospect list is the most valuable to your business. These are names you have collected or compiled yourself.

So if you are looking for more customers like the ones you already have, you'll need to profile your list to determine what characteristics exist in terms of consumer demand and behavior.

Then you'll want to contact a list broker to see what kinds of lists they have available that match the demographics of your direct marketing to consumer profile.

If you are a franchise operation, your headquarters people most likely have plenty of demographic information available to you.

If you seriously look at the buying patterns of your customer, you will be able to profit quite well from the direct marketing to consumer focus.

Use our contact us page for more information.

Or go to another article on how direct marketing can help your small business advertising.

• Go to our Site Map for over 40 original small business advertising articles …

• "11 Key Ways to Step Up Your Ads & Get Better Response" ~ e-course

Back to the top of the direct marketing to consumer page