Response Marketing

Twenty years ago, during the first Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Direct Response Marketing (DRM) in Hong Kong, approximately 3,000 delegates attended. Only three, including yours truly, were from the Philippines. Worse, when countries in Asia-Pacific where highlighted, the Philippines was left out!

When we returned to Manila, our trio of Filipino marketing practitioners committed ourselves to putting the Philippines on the direct marketing map. Over the intervening years, our DRM efforts have blossomed.

Value Proposition
Response Marketing is the discipline of eliciting an engagement with the reader, listener, or viewer. The benchmark of a 1%–2% success rate in DRM used to be considered the norm. Today—with the advent of testing and improvements in the control of DRM variables—much higher rates are possible.

Response rates as high as 40% are attainable for those who practice DRM at the highest levels. A more modest (but still impressive) 5% success rate is now a reasonable goal.

Many companies have traditionally used only one DRM channel (i.e., mail, fax, and telemarketing). But the name of the game is to use as many DRM channels as needed to get the job done right.

Coordinated DRM campaigns now resemble media campaigns and use complex channel combinations (called “Integrated Direct Marketing”). The challenge, of course, is to ensure the proper coordination of these activities.

The five success factors in Response Marketing are

- FIT in Terms of Product and Positioning – Understand what you are offering and how this should be envisioned or recalled by the market.
- ACCURATE Target Market – Understand the profile or dimensions of your market segments or niches.
- TIMELY Research and Testing – Conduct or initiate up-to-date research and/or analysis to maximize timely results.
- RIGHT Offer – Create the best offer or “incentive” to complement the product or service and, more importantly, capture the attention and interest of the target market.
- CATCHY Creative Solutions – Choose the best possible approach to communicate the total package to the target market.

Response Marketing is not just “couponing” or “placing a reply device” in the medium or channel. DRM requires a Strategy Focus. You have to address important questions like: What do you want? How do you plan to achieve it? What products? What channels? What timing?

Training and knowledge are vital. The information you acquire from reading books, talking to colleagues, or attending seminars is valuable. However, it is just the starting point. You have to do hands-on work and learn by doing. Response Marketing, like the broader discipline of Marketing, is a body of knowledge that must be mastered.

Don’t be overwhelmed. It’s essential to maintain your focus and direction in the face of complex information and equations. You need to be clear on your objectives, while maintaining an open mind.

Know your core competency. There are many third parties, service bureaus, and consulting firms who can help you implement effective RM campaigns. Don’t try to do everything yourself. Develop relationships with competent third parties (e.g., list brokers, mailing companies, fulfilment companies, telemarketing companies). Ask around, check on previous clients or jobs, and identify win-win strategic partnerships.

Pitfalls and horror stories abound in the fulfillment side of RM. Even if your communications are flowing effectively and you reach your results through certain channels, that effort is wasted if the fulfillment side is not addressed. Either you make sure you can fulfill your promises or find somebody who can help you deliver the goods.

Be serious in your RM commitment. Many companies initially try RM on a “trial run” basis and then delegate it to a very junior marketing or product officer. This is a myopic strategy that makes it hard for DRM to succeed.

There are many reasons RM efforts fail, such as

-Poorly defined target markets
-Failure to take seasonal patterns into account
-Wrong DRM channel selection
-Inadequate logistics
-Poor back room execution

The bottom line is RM now succeeds all over the world—in the US, Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the Philippines. DRM works well if the people doing it are serious and professional enough to know what it takes to make it successful!


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