Once upon a time companies could advertise on every form of media available, to get their product out there. But now there are way too many different forms and channels to advertise on, making it impossible to afford. Meaning you need to cut costs by only placing your sales pitch right in front of the people most likely to buy.

For this reason, direct marketing is now exploding.

Direct marketing targets specific markets or consumer groups, making for a much higher and more effective response rate than other advertising medians.

If you are undertaking a direct marketing business or project, you need to do more than just putting your message in front of your target market. You need to consider several factors to best increase the response rate. Firstly direct marketing costs money, so you have to consider the timing. If you can’t afford to have your message sit in front of your potential customers 24/7 you need to consider when is the best time to target your market.

For example if you are targeting construction workers, you would not be to successful if you put your message on day time television.

So the first thing you need to do, is identify your target market. Preferably a niche group of individuals with a common problem. For example, house holders who want to improve their garden. This is a pretty broad niche but the problem is specific.

You now need to test if narrowing the market down more will be more cost effective. For example you might find the majority of this niche are women between the ages of 40 & 60 who live in the outer suburbs, not in city’s. The more you narrow down your niche the higher your response rate, or click-through in ad-words campaigns. However you will also miss out on some sales due to less people seeing your message. This is why you must test all campaigns to find your highest profit point.

Once you have your niche and problem, you must then identify a good time to contact them, and also what would be the best median to get your message across. For example if your targeting the younger generation or college students you might find face book is the best option to use as a vehicle for your campaign.

Targeted marketing or Direct marketing has become a necessity in today’s business world. If your undertaking any business venture you should be using some kind of direct marketing, to drive traffic and sales.

You need to have plan laid out, and test your results.