Direct Response (DRTV) with Brand Marketing

By Doug Engebrethson

Many companies, start ups, established DRTV outfits and others attempt to handle fulfillment of their products. We define fulfillment as shipping products, collecting payment and handling customer care. While this may seem like a good business decision, it is fraught with peril. The complexities of inventory management, payment processing, reporting and returns require expertise of staff and technology…most times entailing a significant investment. Investments in these technologies require substantial scale to justify the appropriate ROI. Often, but not always, this investment would be better directed to increasing customer acquisition and retention. Loyal customers who buy again because the quality, price and service were exceptional, is the best strategic course to pursue. Creating a good buying experience is akin to handling fulfillment and customer care in a professional manner. Far too often, the lifetime value of a customer is overlooked in building a brand.

Our top ten reason to consider outsourcing fulfillment follow and can be applied to most products and services. - READ THE ARTICLE: 10 Compelling Reasons for Outsourcing Fulfillment

By Rick Petry

As a marketer new to direct marketing, you may wonder how to best evaluate and select a terrific media planning and buying agency. The following is intended to give the reader a few things to consider and qualities to look for when looking for an agency partner.

Size Matters
One of the issues frequently debated is the size of an agency – is it large? Does it have enough clout? And while certainly you want assurances that the agency has sufficient resources to do right by your campaign, there are pros and cons to be weighed between Madison Avenue buying behemoths and a shop that is more of a boutique.

For example, if you’re a fledgling business just starting out, you’re not likely to have a huge budget. It is easy to get lost in the shuffle amid a large agency that is doing hundreds of millions of dollars in billings and may be under financial pressure to focus on established, big budget accounts. Direct marketing is about testing and retesting, and a giant agency may not have the patience or desire to nurture a smaller player. On the other hand, a small- to mid-sized boutique may be hungry and more inclined to invest the time necessary to build a client from a few thousand dollars in media per week to hundreds of thousands over time. - READ FULL DIRECT RESPONSE ARTICLE: How to Select a Great Short Form DR Media Agency

By Rick Petry

The other day while holiday shopping, I found myself in a major national bookstore chain poised and ready to pull the trigger on a purchase, when my wife suggested I look up the price of the item from a competitor. Armed with my iPhone, I was able to price shop on the Net and discovered I could save $6 on this one purchase from a certain ubiquitous e-tailer. Since I was already planning on placing an order of sufficient magnitude with this purveyor of e-commerce that would guarantee me free shipping, and the purchase in my hand possessed no timeliness factor, I abandoned the bricks and mortar retailer’s merchandise and left the store to go surfing later. You’ve no doubt heard of virtual cart abandonment; welcome to the era of real world purchase interruptus.

While the consumer in me might enjoy the pressure to push down prices this competition creates, the marketer in me cringes at the way this dynamic creates leverage that erodes prices and margins. The scenario described above is perhaps the ultimate proof that a truly Darwinian rule of law has taken hold – that with the pervasiveness of money back guarantees and liberal return policies creating a level playing field – that it is pretty much price, and to a much lesser extent availability, that drives the marketplace. That being the case, and with a scant few retailers dominating the marketplace, how on earth is a manufacturer or marketer suppose to compete and make a reasonable profit?
- READ FULL DIRECT RESPONSE ARTICLE: Marketers! Combat Price Erosion With Direct Response

By Hal Altman

This year, the retail industry has experienced the closing, bankruptcy or near bankruptcy of some of the largest and most successful retail names of the last twenty-five years. Others such as Wal Mart, Costco, Sam’s, Target, and Bed Bath and Beyond seem to not only survive, but are also able to show profits in our unstable economy.

What does this mean to the Direct Response industry? Less outlets to sell product that television, radio or web has worked hard to advertise, establish and create a brand for.

Retail chains have not only breathed life into Direct Response products, but in most cases, successfully outsold traditional Direct Response sales exponentially.
In tough economic times, retailers search for recognized Direct Response product and know that with continued television and radio coverage, combined with retail exposure, this can be a win-win situation for all.

The next question is how do Direct Marketers prepare and get into the lucrative world of retail? The answer is easy, and doesn’t cost any more to prepare for retail distribution while you introduce your product via traditional Direct Response channels.

Look into a retail distribution company that can guide you through the process of packaging your merchandise so that it can be easily and inexpensively ready for a rush retail test. You don’t want to ever be caught in a position of not being able to immediately furnish your product for a retail test if the opportunity arises. - READ FULL DIRECT RESPONSE ARTICLE: Having a Plan Will Save you Money

By Scott Richards

One of the oldest and most effective forms of direct response marketing has been the “per inquiry” (PI) model of advertising. PI advertising has been around decades before Google popularized the model online. Simply put, with PI advertising, the advertiser pays only for qualified responses. What constitutes a “qualified response” has always been the tricky part.

While technology has changed, the core model of PI advertising has not. Therein lies the problem. The success of Google’s online advertising platform can be attributed, in part, to its tool, which brought a degree of transparency to the process. - Putting the Trust Back in Per Inquiry Advertising

By Jill Albert

You know that device you listen to day after day on your way to the office, it’s on at the gym, you in fact SING ALONG with it when your favorite song plays, yell at it when RUSH LIMBAUGH is ranting or your favorite team misses a shot. You have come to rely on your favorite radio station for traffic information and breaking news, as well as a recommendation for a new restaurant, how to entertain yourself in the coming weekend, what retailer is having a sale and how to survive in today’s economy. It is true… most of us have an emotional bond with our favorite radio station.

Radio continues to be a staple in America’s daily diet with over 90% of working adults listening two plus hours each day, and reaching over 94% of all people weekly. Radio provides target ability, relationship marketing, frequency as well as REACH and is present with just about every one of those emerging technologies that we marketers are trying to use to reach consumers. Internet users listen to radio more than any other media while surfing the web and over 45% of Internet radio listening is streamed to local stations.
- So what about RADIO?

- By Alexis Rosenberg

In this weakening economy, many companies have cut their advertising budgets along with their workforce. This does not bode well for the advertising world at large. It becomes a domino effect with the result being Newspapers and Magazines, whose livelihood depend on advertising revenue, folding. To counteract this effect, DISH Network is in the fortunate position of expanding.

DISH Network’s main headquarters are in Denver. A little over a year ago, a New York advertising sales office for DISH Network was opened. This was spearheaded by Mr. Michael Finn, who came over from Viacom. Now, there are salespeople in both offices, establishing a greater reach into the marketplace.

Brian Norris, previously from Viacom and Lifetime, heads up the Direct Response team. By selecting a team of DR salespeople from throughout the industry, each person’s business relationships could be utilized for expansion.

Instead of standing by while revenue declined, our new office and expansion has helped DISH’s Direct Response business grow by adding new advertisers on the air. Changes need to happen when the economy is declining, but it doesn’t always have to be job cuts as DISH Network has proven.
Expanding further into the Market with the opening of a New York Sales Office

Testimonials, a staple of direct response advertising, may be a tried-and-true tactic for arresting consumer attention and eliciting response, but they must be handled deftly to avoid cliché and audience cynicism. So how does a marketer ensure they get it right? The following tips are designed to help assist you in avoiding the pitfalls and getting the testimonial mix right:

1. Look for Quality, Not Quantity: While many infomercials will feature quick sound bites of various consumers singing their product’s praise along the lines of, “It’s great!” “I love it!” “It changed my life!”, 20 years of focus group experience suggests that nothing tanks interest nor invites skepticism more than this tactic. One reason may be that the approach has been so overused that audiences simply consider these sequences one big unbelievable yawn. There’s a real distinction between someone who is an evangelist for a brand and someone who is merely satisfied. The best kind of brand evangelist is also a natural born influencer – it’s that ebullient force of nature we all know who freely extols the virtues of a product to all of their friends and inspires them to follow suit. This is the sort of testimonial you’ll ideally have in your marketing arsenal, but you must allow them time to breath and tell their story.

2. At the Same Time, You May Need Quantity: It’s easy to say, “Hey, go round up some brand evangelists,” but while you can try and screen for them, until you turn on that camera, you won’t know exactly what you’ve got. One very successful direct marketer suggested that a 10 to 1 ratio was required to cull out a broadcast-worthy testimonial! Those are pretty daunting numbers, but then when you consider the failure rate of DRTV programs, you have to ask yourself, “Do you want to solve this problem in pre-production or deal with it once the camera is rolling?” That brings us to…

3. Don’t Rush the Process: One of the biggest mistakes we’ve observed is this: the marketer says, “Testimonials? No problem! We get letters…” then proceeds to truncate the amount of time required to identify and line up great testimonials. Concurrently, the production train gets rolling until it runs head on into what one head of production wryly observed are the three most expensive words in commercial production – “Client will provide.” The entire process turns into a compromised, muddled mess with not only less than ideal testimonials, but fewer of them to choose from in the edit suite. Which is one reason you might want to consider this: - Tips for Getting Great Testimonials

By Beth Simonson Handler

Surprisingly New Low Cost Advertising Opportunities emerge amidst Economic Quake

The Global economic crisis has fostered bad news for industries across the board. In the world of Cable and Television advertising, there are a few who see the future looking much brighter as low cost high quality media has leveled the playing field, for businesses that absolutely must expose their products to the mass audience.Low Cost Media for Agencies, Media Brokers, Marketers and Entrepreneurs

By Shari Altman

It’s always a topic of conversation among DR marketers – What’s “hot”? But what is “hot” today may be a bad bet in terms of profits and sales. The so-called “flash in the pan” like the “pet rock” of yesteryear is not a trend to follow. There was only one “Pet Rock”.

So let’s take a look instead at what trends are popular, with an eye towards those that have longevity and thus opportunity for sales and profits not just today, but over the years to come. The key – long-lived marketing trends are always based on real societal changes. Offer and Product Trends in DR - Fall 2008