Direct Marketing
New Zealand Direct Marketing
Direct marketing is used by many organisations and businesses in New Zealand, from large corporates and banks to local individuals. Through a variety of channels, direct marketing provides personalised, targeted marketing to consumers and businesses.
What is direct marketing?
Direct marketing refers to the type of marketing where a business communicates directly with its target market. There are two qualities that distinguish New Zealand direct marketing:
1) The offer is made directly to the consumer/business, generally involving unsolicited, commercial communication.
2) The offer is made specifically to elicit a response (known as a “call to action”), examples of this being a purchase, or filling in a survey in return for a discount voucher, call a phone number, or visit a website. These responses can normally be easily tracked, measured and analysed to determine results.
Direct marketing in New Zealand attempts to create relationships between a business and their current or potential clients. There are several different channels that NZ direct marketers use to reach their target market. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Direct mail
Direct mail is the most common form of direct marketing in New Zealand. It is a very effective form of reaching a large number of consumers, many of whom may respond positively. The postal service (NZ Post) is used to send out a bulk mailing to all addresses in a certain area, or all consumers whose names appear on a certain list. Direct mail can be targeted by the use of databases, or untargeted. The mail may be addressed specifically to a consumer, or unaddressed. All New Zealanders are used to the sight of letterboxes overflowing with the week’s supermarket specials, chain store mailers, free real estate appraisal offers, and many others. Direct mail may be more than a simple catalogue or piece of paper- free CD ROM’s, postcards and plastic wrapped packages are all seen in our country. The main advantages of direct mail are:
- Mail can be personalised to address a consumers needs based on their previous buying history and demographics.
- Mail can be targeted more precisely by looking at previous responses, and better offers made to consumers.
- Analysis can be made because the size of the mailing is normally high enough to allow statistical investigation. This investigation will optimise future direct mail campaigns.
However there are important critiques of direct mail:
- From a businesses perspective, direct mail can be expensive, and definitely results in large wastage of paper.
- Many New Zealand consumers prefer to not receive unsolicited mail, with ‘no junk mail’ and ‘no circulars’ signs appearing on a large number of letterboxes. This will not stop all direct mail however, but there is a service available for consumers who wish to reduce the amount of direct mail and telemarketing calls they receive: The New Zealand Name Removal Service, provided by the Marketing Association of New Zealand, prevents members of that association from contacting consumers who have made a request to be added to the name removal register.
- In the environmentally aware NZ society that we live in today, direct mail results in massive paper wastage, not all of which is recycled, and certainly the manufacture and disposal process consumes huge amounts of energy.
Telemarketing
Another common form of direct marketing in New Zealand is telemarketing, where businesses call consumers (and in some cases other businesses), either from a list or at random, offering a product or service over the phone. Many Kiwis find these calls invasive, especially as they often occur outside business hours, in the evening.
Email direct marketing
Email marketing can be both solicited, where a consumer is a member of a mailing list, or unsolicited (known as spam). It is the fastest growing method of direct marketing in New Zealand. Recent legislation has been passed to attempt to curb the flow of unsolicited emails into New Zealanders' inboxes, however as the vast majority of such email comes from overseas, there are doubts as to whether this legislation will have any real impact.
Creating your direct marketing strategy
Follow the basics for an effective direct marketing campaign:
- Define your audience: who are you trying to reach? Consider age, gender, occupation, location and other factors. Be sure to target people who will be receptive; a blanket advertising campaign may be expensive and ineffective.
- Choose your method: what are you options? Consider mail-outs, email and telemarketing campaigns - and decide which will be best suited to your business needs.
- Create quality content: what is the message you want to communicate? Make sure your message is respectful, informative and creative.
Looking for more information? Find New Zealand direct marketing in the NZS.com directory.
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Business images from Flickr: Sky Tower, New Zealand Flag and Wellington Buildings.
