Marketing Direct

Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

Advantages and Disadvantages of Direct Marketing – The Ups and Downs of Marketing Direct

March 10th, 2021

Direct marketing remains a powerful media channel. Yet, in today’s multimedia environment some question the value of direct marketing. The best way to pin down the truth of that sentiment is to look at the advantages and disadvantages of direct marketing vs. digital marketing.

Advantages of Marketing Direct

• Remains an effective and popular media channel. In a survey of marketers, 57% said they considered print media such as white papers and research reports effective. Besides its effectiveness, it’s also still popular. For example, 61% of marketers use white papers.

• A workhorse media channel that educates, brands, and more. The bread-and-butter of B2B marketing consists of educating potential buyers about complex products and solutions. You have research reports, brochures, and data sheets, to name a few. Marketing direct also offers a cradle-to-grave solution that includes branding, lead generation, and customer nurturing.

• Tailored content to targeted audience. Marketing content comes in various forms to address prospects’ needs in any phase of the buying cycle. So B2B marketers can easily tailor their information to a specific audience. Why is that important? It’s essential because it ensures you provide relevant, useful and timely information your prospects want and need.

Disadvantages of Marketing Direct

• Social media’s explosive growth will crush marketing direct. Trends clearly show growth in online and mobile media consumption. Meanwhile growth in marketing direct shows no growth. We may have reached an inflection point, with digital media being the preferred way to engage prospects.

• Decision makers don’t have time to read. Today’s marketing makes reading optional. Media-rich tools like blogs, micro-blogs, SlideShare, Vimeo, You Tube, photos (Pinterest) and infographics, deliver marketing messages quickly and easily, while entertaining you.

• Real-time marketing can’t be beaten. Social media’s growth in part depends on its instantaneous messaging and responsiveness. You can post a social media tweet or post and have it reach your target audience in seconds. Customer engagement with social media is unrivaled.

Go with Tried-and-True or Up-and-Coming?

In nutshell, marketing direct clearly remains a stalwart. It’s effective. It’s efficient. And it’s still highly consumable in the B2B space.

On the flip side, growth in digital marketing shows impressive growth. It’s catching on fast. Given this backdrop, rather than throwing your eggs in one basket, you can benefit from combining marketing direct and digital.

Combining them helps smooth out the ups and downs of both for maximum effectiveness. The synergies of these two offer more than either channel can deliver on its own.

That makes a strong case for continuing to exploit both. Looking at them this way, you’ll maximize your marketing spend and produce more engaging, relevant, and consumable marketing content.

Comments Off »

Posted in Uncategorized

Tags: Direct Marketing

Is Marketing Direct Sales Different From Multi-Level Marketing?

February 10th, 2021

Some years ago, I partnered with my first multi-level marketing company or MLM, not knowing exactly what a MLM company was. I thought I was just selling makeup and getting others to join me. Once I got into the industry, my eyes opened up to the conglomerate of marketing direct sales companies and all the various types of direct sales companies. There is multi-level marketing, network marketing, affiliate marketing, internet marketing and whatever other phrase that is hot for the new year. In either case, I was confused. I am always coming across people who don’t understand the difference between the different types of companies so I figured I will break it down simply for you all. In today’s blog I will focus on multi-level marketing.

Marketing Direct Sales: Direct Sales is an industry in which companies sell their products or services directly to consumers through a distributorship.

Basically, think of the term “direct sales” as the broad category for multi-level marketing and affiliate marketing. Marketing direct sales also goes beyond these two types of companies. There are also single-level companies that typically include industries such as real-estate and financial services. Single-level in which distributors are just compensated for the work that they do.

Marketing Direct Sales: Multi-Level Marketing

Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) is an industry in which individuals or an individual entity, called distributors, sell a company’s products or services through a down-line of distributors.

In MLMs, individuals are able to purchase the right to sell a specific company’s products or services and are able to earn a commission on the items she or he sells. What makes multi-level marketing so attractive is that not only do you earn a commission on the products/services you sell, but you also earn a commission on sales when people join the business under you.

In product based companies, like Mary Kay, Amway, Organo Gold, etc., distributors are able to buy products at wholesale and sell them at retail, which is usually a 50% markup on the wholesale price.

In service based companies, like Legal Shield, ACN, etc. distributors are required to utilize the service to maintain their distributorship.

Additionally, as distributors bring more people into the company and sell more products they are able to achieve certain rankings.

MLMs are based around rankings that incentivize people to produce more. As you move up the ranks, you are able to earn higher commissions and earn additional bonuses.

Marketing Direct Sales: The Downside of Multi-Level Marketing

The multi-Level marketing industry is often associated with a lot of negativity. Typically, when you hear the words network marketing or MLM, you will hear the following: SCAM! Before there were concrete regulations in place, there were people marketing direct sales illegally. There were many fly-by-night companies that came on the scene that were doing illegal activities such as Ponzi schemes. The issue here is that the majority of commissions were made off of bringing people into the business instead of selling products or services.

However, the Fed shut down many of these companies years ago. However, be mindful there are still a few illegal companies lingering out there.

Marketing Direct Sales: Conclusion

Overall, this is a viable industry that allows anyone to make a solid living and for the real go-getters an opportunity to create wealth. Deciding to partake in this industry depends on what you are looking for. Fortunately, there are a variety of companies for everyone. Whether you like to do home parties selling makeup, jewelry, I’ve even seen bread! There are also online businesses.