The Direct to Brand process

The Science of Cha-Ching

Within traditional (i.e. inexperienced) ad circles, you might hear that direct response is fairly simplistic. “You want to try direct response?

Slap an 800 number and web site address on your TV spot, alert your customer support people, and there’s nothing else to it.” Frankly, nothing could be further from the truth. There’s far more to direct response than a phone number or e-mail address – if you want a successful direct-to-brand campaign. Furthermore, without an experienced direct-to-

brand practitioner, the “opportunities” for error are many times that of a traditional brand campaign.

In other words, the direct-to-brand message is a carefully cultivated hybrid. Just like the raising of prized orchids, crafting such messages is a unique skill. Brand and direct messaging are precisely grafted in an effective direct-to-brand campaign, not simply stapled together. Again, merely slapping on a phone number in the visual fine print just won’t do if you’re expecting results.

A successful, integrated direct response campaign requires a series of steps – well-managed, and carefully executed from start to finish; we call it The Science of Cha-Ching™.

Next week we begin to break down the elements that make up the process, so please check back…and give us your thoughts!

Why integrate Direct Response?

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Why integrate Direct Response?

Direct response provides you with the ability to generate exponential and/or immediate improvements in results (i.e. sales or leads). Direct response can generate such results in many ways.

When you think of direct response, you immediately think of the phone or web site. But direct response marketers also experience favorable results in driving retail sales. Interestingly, most people who see a DRTV spot don’t pick up the phone and order it if it’s available at a retail store. Industry statistics suggest that anywhere from ten to 15 units will be sold at a store for every one ordered over the phone. This small slice of consumer behavior is why Sears and Home Depot are now so successful with DRTV. 

If integrated by an experienced direct-to-brand firm, response can also build brand for your product or service with the important bonus of high measurability.

 Direct response incorporates real-time measurable advertising media – particularly DRTV – that enable you to first test your campaign without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a long-term commitment. A DRTV campaign, for example, begins with a relatively inexpensive one to two week low budget media test. Following the first week of testing, you can immediately make one of four choices:

If the revenues generated are not covering the cost of media placement on a one-to-one ratio, you can…

(1) re-tool the creative approach to strengthen the brand message,

(2) alter the media schedule to make more effective media buys, or

(3) simply terminate the direct response campaign.

On the other hand, if the campaign is generating at least a break-even return on investment…

(4) it’s time to begin incrementally increasing the media budget with the bottom line goal of managing a direct response campaign that pays for itself.

Building Your Brand and Your Bottom Line with Direct Response™

“Everything marketers do must support or build the brand. Realizing value from direct response marketing requires a holistic direct-to-brand strategy, unless you’re prepared for a new set of problems to emerge.” Jim Warren

Generating sales is still a goal today, but sophisticated brand managers are now using direct response to accomplish so much more than generating sales transactions. They employ a direct-to-brand approach to create or enhance a brand, enhance a company’s image, drive retail sales, and generate leads, just to name a few – all with the goal of developing long-term customer relationships, not merely single transactions.

Direct response built American Express, AOL, and Book of the Month Club, Dell Computer, GEICO Direct, Time Life Books and other well-known and respected brands. These early adopters of direct response technologies, and the brand managers that used them, have sought to differentiate themselves from their competition by building their business models around direct response.

The good news is that already well-established brands can be enhanced by direct-to-brand as well. Additionally, brand managers looking for an innovative way to gain incremental improvements in results with their existing brand will find direct response technologies an ideal fit. Sears, Home Depot, and Apple Computer are notable existing brands that now incorporate direct response in direct-to-brand marketing campaigns.

You see a particular wrench or tool set at Sears, and wonder what on earth it’s good for, and you don’t buy it. But after you see Bob Vila demonstrating its uses on TV, you’re likely to buy it the next time you go to Sears. Thanks to Bob’s advice to visit Sears today, you might

make a special trip just to get one.

Similarly, Home Depot now routinely makes special offers via DRTV, and invites the viewer to “Call, Click, or Visit.™”

Apple Computer has run DRTV spots designed to turn consumers away from the plethora of Windows-based PCs and towards a MacOS-based Apple product. The commercials feature people who have done so, and why they’re glad they did. If the viewer is then persuaded to at least consider a switch, he or she can call a number for a nearby outlet, or visit Apple’s website for more information. Sears, Home Depot, and Apple Computer are well-respected brands. Such Direct Response ads enhance that brand image while generating immediate and incremental improvements in results.

Direct To Brand

What is Direct-to-Brand™?
The use of direct response to its fullest potential in
transactional marketing while at the same time maximizing its use it to support and/or build a brand.

This is a simple definition of direct-to-brand
marketing. To fully understand the significance of
our disciplined approach, you must first understand the
impact of direct response. Direct response, in its many
formats, is a marketing “technology” designed to take
fullest advantage of direct to customer relationships for
the benefit of your brand and your bottom line. Our
version of direct response is an evolution in traditional
brand marketing by the addition of one significant factor
– a call-to-action; a motivation for the consumer to “act
now” in direct response to your brand message.

The history of direct response began in the earliest days
of broadcasting with, among others, industry pioneer
Alvin Eicoff. The inventor of d-Con rat poison
approached him to market d-Con. Retailers wouldn’t sell
it since it was an unproven product. So Eicoff ran direct
response radio ads. In those days, 800 numbers and
even credit cards did not exist. Listeners were prompted
to write down an address and send a check. D-Con
worked so well, people started asking for it at various
stores. The stores contacted Eicoff with apologies and
asked to market the product. He then came up with a
concept called “key outlet” sales, which strives to get the
consumer to a retail outlet. Eicoff put the product in
selected stores, and went back on the radio, “Send for it
by mail, or you can buy it today at XYZ Hardware.”

And the rest, as they say, is history. When people think
of direct response, they may think first of such notable
consumer products as the Pocket Fisherman or Ginsu
knives. And in the early days, that’s essentially all it was
– a presentation directly to the consumer in which the
merchant asked the consumer to send in a check to
purchase the product – in short, a direct response. The
entire goal was to generate a single sales transaction.
Later, AT&T created 800 numbers, Bank of America
invented the charge card, and the process became even
easier. Even so, the fundamentals of pure direct
response haven’t changed.