Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is a type of marketing tool which attempts to send its messages directly to consumers without the use of media such as television and radio. This involves commercial communication for example direct mail and e-mail with businesses and consumers. Also direct marketing focuses on driving a specific “call to action” making sure the direct marketing is measurable and has a positive response from consumers.

Direct mail

Direct mail is the most common source of direct marketing and is also known as junk mail. Organisations send paper mail to all postal customers in an area or to all previous customers that have previously attended an event or similar event before.

The only direct mail that I received out of the two chosen events was one direct mail piece from Crufts which I received on 14/11/2009 which was quite a while back.

The direct mail was personally addressed to me with my home address since this was where my Crufts tickets from past years after attending the exhibition had been delivered to, so I was guessing that I am still on the customer list record for sending out direct mailing from the Crufts organisation to update me for the Crufts exhibition 2010.

The first thing that I noticed before even opening the direct mail was the envelope, It was not just a normal plain white envelope that you normally receive in the post, it was a colourful bright envelope with the same colours which were used on the Crufts website. Also I recognised that the mail was going to be Crufts as the logo and main sponsor was directly bold in the top left corner of the envelope and at the side was a massive picture of the dog who won “Best in Show” last year in 2009. When I turned the envelope over to open it I could see that the Kennel Club logo was on the back promoting the Club and the Exhibition.

As for the direct mail the first thing I came across was the logo and main sponsor again but also which caught my attention was in bold were the dates of the exhibition and where it was taking place and the opening times.

After opening up the mail I found that it was a two sided piece of colourful advertisement of all the information broken down from the official website with the use of lots of pictures of dogs and people from previous events. Also quotations were used such as “We had a fab day out, and we hope you will too!” from past customers experience and the use of different wording of the quotation to entice and attract customers to go again.

I found out that Crufts were personally addressing this to me to get me to attend Crufts again by using the sentence “Hi Miss Tovey, we look forward to seeing you again at DFS Crufts 2010”. This is a great marketing tool for organisations as it is making the customer feel more special and appreciated as they are marketing a certain person using that customer’s personal name to get them to attend the event again.

Last of all I did find that they were using the direct response advertising approach for customers to take a specific action after reading the promotion by providing potential customers with “Visit a website for advance and saving on tickets” or “to find more information out about Crufts or call a phone number to book your tickets in advance and save money”. This approach is to entice the customers in to either look on the internet on their official page for more information or to get the potential customers to buy tickets from the hotline to save money and before they sell out.