You’ve probably heard the term "direct marketing" before but might not have known what it truly is. After all, isn’t all marketing the same? Getting your product or service and message out to the public so that they buy? Actually, direct marketing is just that----getting your sales message out to the specific buyers of your product or service. It is targeting your message to people who would benefit the most from what you are selling.

In my business as a professional speaker and infopreneur I target my message to three specific markets for my services-----schools, human services organizations and businesses. My marketing materials are vastly different for each market since school students require a different message than business owners. When I send out a brochure or sales letter to a school assembly coordinator I have one goal in mind-----to make the person say to him/herself, "I’d be crazy not to book this guy!". I make an irresistible offer and stress the benefits of him/her booking me. Stressing the benefits of your offer over the features of your product or service is one the most important concepts in direct marketing, or any marketing for that matter.

You have to realize that everyone is tuned in to the same radio station, which is WII-FM. This stands for "what’s in it for me?" People don’t care whether you’ve been in business for 50 years or the fact that you say your product or service is the best. The only thing your customers want to know is how your product or service will solve their problem. And that’s basically what you are doing in any business, simply solving problems.

When you state your case in an advertising piece, sales letter or yellow page ad, the focus should be solely on the customer and how you can help him/her. With your marketing piece you want people to raise their hand and say "I’m interested, tell me more". I haven’t done any cold-calling in my business for over 7 years by using direct marketing. I only want qualified leads and people who are truly interested in my service to call me. By crafting irresistible offers in all of my marketing pieces as well as on the web I can ensure my pipeline of new customers stays full and business stays consistent even in the worst of economic times.

There are two main questions you will need to ask yourself should you decide to use direct marketing in your business:

1. Who are my best prospects for my products/services?

2. What’s the best way to reach them? (e.g. direct mail, trade journal ad, etc.)

Once you answer these two questions the only thing left is to get into action and directly contact them with your offer and then you’ll have a flood of new customers to skyrocket your business! In next months’ article I’ll be discussing how direct marketing will benefit non-profit organizations.