3 Major Forms of Digital Direct Marketing Explained

Published December 30, 2019 by Bryan Miller

If you’re searching for ways to improve your current marketing campaigns, one method of doing so is through the form of digital direct marketing. This marketing strategy has proven to be very effective at reaching customers. It also makes sure that they understand the benefits that your product or service can provide.

This form of marketing is the digital counterpart to traditional direct marketing, which usually involves sending ads to the customer’s home. When using digital direct marketing, you will be able to speak directly to your customers through your marketing efforts.

Inbound marketing is another term for digital direct marketing. It is designed to bring visitors and customers in while bolstering brand exposure. Additionally, it increases the authority of your brand by creating valuable content for the end user. When you use this form of marketing correctly, customers will not only trust your brand but will be more likely to increase conversions and boost sales.

Multiple people collaborating around table

When digital direct marketing is implemented properly into a marketing campaign, you should be able to reach your audience in an instant. The performance of this marketing can be tracked with metrics and appeal directly to your target audience. You can also customize this digital marketing with the personal preferences and information of the recipient which bolsters the efficacy of this type of marketing.

There are three primary methods of using digital direct marketing, which include emails, mobile applications, and web browser ads. If you use all three of these methods correctly, it’s likely that you will be able to effectively diversify your marketing strategy to obtain high returns. The following article provides you with an in-depth guide to the three major forms of digital direct marketing. This should give you everything you need to know to start implementing these marketing techniques into your campaign.

What is Digital Direct Marketing?

Two people collaborating with laptops

Digital direct marketing is a form of marketing that allows you to connect and market directly to your customers for a more personable approach to marketing. In order to effectively leverage digital direct marketing, it’s important that you’re aware of who your target audience is. Digital direct marketing takes the best elements of traditional direct marketing while applying them to the internet. Since this marketing occurs on a digital platform, you don’t need to worry about physically mailing or stamping anything.

This form of marketing is important because it allows you to provide your customers with marketing that’s timely and relevant to their needs. Because of this, there’s a higher chance that the target audience will actually respond. It’s also a very inexpensive marketing type. This means that you won’t need to spend your entire marketing budget during the trial-and-error phase.

When you implement digital direct marketing into your campaign you efforts can be measured. This gives you the ability to measure how successful your campaign was. Digital direct marketing is an essential part of business today because it allows you to reach customers you normally wouldn’t be able to through traditional marketing. This approach gives you the ability to speak directly to your target audience. Digital direct marketing should help you increase customer conversion rates.

Digital Direct Marketing vs. Traditional Direct Marketing

Mailboxes and plants

Direct marketing comes in two forms, which include digital direct marketing and traditional direct marketing. The traditional type of direct marketing includes catalogs, mail, fliers, and coupons. This marketing is sent to the customer directly through their mail. Other types of traditional direct marketing include telemarketing and face-to-face selling.

While traditional direct marketing is still a viable method, it can be expensive and is very difficult to actually measure. The only thing you can be confident about when you send these materials is that they arrived at their intended destination. There’s no way to determine if the prospective customer opened the letter or postcard.

Digital direct marketing is very similar to the traditional form but with some key differences. With direct digital marketing, the marketing materials are sent through digital avenues as opposed to mail. When using this marketing strategy, the costs should be better when compared to traditional marketing.

Unlike traditional direct marketing, the performance of digital direct marketing can be measured. This allows you to identify which materials had high response rates and which ones weren’t as effective as you intended. This marketing is also much better than its traditional counterpart because more and more customers are shopping online. Even though traditional marketing still has its uses, the customer base that you can reach online is much wider.

Types of Digital Direct Marketing

There are many different forms of both traditional direct marketing and digital direct marketing. For traditional direct marketing, materials such as coupons, catalogs, and fliers are commonly sent through the mail. As for digital direct marketing, the three primary types include mobile phones, web browsers, and email. Knowing how to use these methods of direct marketing should assist you in creating a successful digital direct marketing campaign.

Mobile Phones

Woman using smartphone

You can use digital direct marketing with mobile phones by using mobile app marketing. There are two ways that you can use mobile app marketing. However, the one that correlates with digital direct marketing is the use of push notifications. When a customer downloads an application for your business or website, you will be able to send push notifications directly to their phones. Push notifications are very similar to text messages, which means that you have the ability to capture the customer’s attention in seconds.

There are several types of push notifications that you can send to these customers. Notifications can include information about new features on your website, important app updates, and special offers. To understand how this type of marketing works, a company can use digital direct marketing with mobile phones by first creating a mobile app of their website. Once this app has been created, it can offer incentives for downloading the app. When customers have downloaded your app, you can send them push notifications of anything they may find relevant.

One company that uses this method very well is Youtube. When a customer uses the Youtube app and subscribes to a channel, Youtube will send a push notification every time a new video is added to the channel. Notifications like this usually garner an immediate response by the customer.

Web Browsers

Google homepage

Digital direct marketing through web browsers involves using website cookies to advertise directly to the customer. A cookie is a very small form of code that is added to the user’s browser when they visit a website. This code is only stored for a short period of time and changes how the browser interacts with the pages that the user visits. The information that is stored with website cookies may include age, interests, and behavior when using websites and social media.

With access to this information, you can retain data, save user preferences, and send retargeting ads. Retargeting ads prove to be very effective at appealing to your target audience. Let’s say that a site visitor spends time looking at a specific product on your website. you can use that information to send the customer an ad of that specific product even when they are no longer using your website. Amazon uses this method well and will send high amounts of retargeting ads so that customers are regularly thinking about them.

Email

Email notification

This is a very simple form of digital direct marketing that involves sending emails to any customers on your email list. These emails can come in the form of coupons, sales bulletins, or newsletters. Before sending these emails, it’s important to place relevant information in them. If a subset of your customers have shown that they are interested in a product that you sell, the emails you send could advertise a sale on the product in question.

You can then measure the results from these emails by identifying how many customers opened the ad and how many navigated to your website from the email. Companies like Netflix and Amazon regularly send emails that are targeted and relevant to the interests of each individual customer.

Benefits of Digital Direct Marketing

Idea lightbulb

Using digital direct marketing as a portion of your marketing efforts can pay dividends if you perform this marketing properly. For one, this form of marketing is targeted, which gives you the opportunity to garner a high response rate. While broad marketing can be effective at bringing in new customers, it can also cause you to waste a significant sum of money. You can send direct marketing materials to customers by collecting information on the behaviors that your customers display.

This marketing is also easy to share and can be properly measured through analytics. The open rate and click-through rate metrics can be invaluable when you’re measuring the success of your marketing campaign. Other key benefits of digital direct marketing:

  • It is inexpensive
  • A very personal form of marketing
  • Allows for immediate responses
  • Requires a simple and concise approach

Get Started with Digital Direct Marketing

When you want to get started with digital direct marketing, the first step that you should take is to identify which form of digital direct marketing you would like to use first. If you want to pursue mobile app marketing, start working on creating an application for your website or brand. Once the app has been created, you can start sending push notifications that are relevant to the interests of your customers. If you want to engage in digital direct marketing with emails, you should gather an email list of the customers who visit your website. Keep in mind that you should have updated analytics of your customers in order to provide them with relevant emails.

Digital direct marketing is straightforward and versatile if you know what you’re doing. It can also pay dividends without requiring you to spend a large amount of your marketing budget. This type of marketing is important because it gives you the ability to speak directly with your customers without requiring you to send marketing materials through the mail or place an ad on TV. Every ad or notification that you send out can be measured, which will help you fine-tune your approach. If you want your business to successfully reach your target audience, digital direct marketing is very important.

Here at Bryt Designs, we understand what it takes to create an effective digital direct marketing campaign. If you have any questions about how to develop one of these campaigns or would like to learn more about all of the services that we provide, contact us today!

Bryan Miller

Bryan Miller

Bryt Designs

Bryan Miller is an entrepreneur and web tech enthusiast specializing in web design, development and digital marketing. Bryan is a recent graduate of the MBA program at the University of California, Irvine and continues to pursue tools and technologies to find success for clients across a varieties of industries.

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