26 years of working closely with hundreds of businesses on marketing gives me lots of interesting insights that can be used as a guide. Today, I want to highlight the power of direct marketing which not many businesses are doing. It's a form of a proactive marketing push where you communicate directly with your specific target audience to elicit a specific response. It's not just about sending a message, but about sending a message that could spark a particular action. This could be anything from encouraging a subscription to your newsletter and inviting them to sign up to your online platform to perhaps asking them for referrals and so on. Unlike indirect marketing, which relies on social media, search engines or OOH (Out-Of-Home) to build general brand awareness, direct marketing focuses on one-to-one communication and driving a particular, measurable outcome.
I am presently working with a state government agency here in Malaysia to promote a new job portal they’re about to launch. There is a distinct uniqueness in this job portal compared to the ones available in the marketing out there. I know that we’re going to struggle big time to compete with larger incumbent players, so we decided to adopt a more subtle yet effective approach—direct marketing . . .
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