Direct Response Branding – An Intro
As branding campaigns come more and more under the budget-cutter’s knife, and as marketing budgets get squeezed hard for ROI, direct response is emerging as a relevant option for marketing campaigns.
It’s actually emerging as a necessary component for marketing spends.
“Branding” campaigns, the love child of overpriced media and pompous agency suits, are tied to “recognition.”
Direct response campaigns are tied to results.
Branding campaigns rely on fluffy ideas about “exposure” and “impressions.”
Direct response campaigns leverage strong calls to action.
Branding campaigns are considered successful if some mystical notion of “awareness” is reached.
Direct response campaigns are tightly measured and tied to distinct, specific objectives (responses, conversions, sales, etc.)
Branding campaigns are custom-tailored for clients with huge budgets and huge egos.
Direct response campaigns fit results-oriented, bottom-line focused, demanding players.
Branding campaigns are soooo 2003.
Direct response is the way of the present and the future.
As budgets get frozen and cut, every expenditure has to become an investment: trackable, accountable and highly responsive to ROI calculations.
Direct response is perfect for that. A well-designed campaign matches all 3 criteria, and delivers results directly.
The Funnel and the List: How Direct Response Works
Direct response campaigns are predicated on the idea that a prospect, once reached and motivated, will take some sort of action. There are varying degrees of action, ranging from a request for more information to an actual purchase, and they synchronize to create a funnel that moves a prospect from interest to purchase.
The first important point: Direct response seeks to purposefully move prospects along the path toward action. Good direct response materials – digital or hard copy; text, audio or visual – help prospects determine their interest in a product or service, and gradually engage more deeply with the provider.
This is known as the selling “funnel,” through which interested prospects pass -at their own pace- as they move toward a purchase or long-term relationship with a provider.
As they move through the engagement process, prospects naturally create relationships with direct marketers. They become increasingly aware and -ideally- intrigued as they encounter a well-designed direct response campaign. In direct marketing terms, they become part of the “list” of target prospects, a key component of direct response marketing.
Designed and delivered properly and ethically, direct response campaigns are all about relationships. Good providers understand the benefits of having an active and responsive prospect list, and work hard to provide value to the members of their lists.
In direct response, “the money is in the list,” because it is much easier to create relationships with -and sell products and services to- engaged prospects than it is to keep building new prospect lists.
The second important point about direct response: Direct response campaigns can be tracked step-by-step, with appropriate measurements and standards for each step in the purchasing process. Direct response clients know exactly how many “eyeballs” became prospects; how many prospects became engaged; and how many of those engaged became purchasers.
The process is fabulously sophisticated, with options and variations at each step. But the simple rules of good design and accountability persist.
Branding is about cleverness and sleek visual and audio effects. Its primary purpose is to satisfy smug CEO and officer-suite client representatives. Its important outcomes generally include “good buzz” about a campaign, whether it actually improves business or not.
Direct response is about results. Its primary purpose is to move people into action that benefits the client. Its important outcomes are directly tied to business results.
With direct response, cleverness must serve measurable business objectives, as it does for GEICO Insurance.
GEICO: A Direct Response Masterpiece
Whether or not you like gekko lizards, cavemen or faux celebrity pitch-players, GEICO Insurance has an advertising formula that clearly works. And it works not only because we grin at the commercials; it works because the company’s results have been terrific.
According to GEICO’s marketing VP, they’re the only major insurance player to realize spectacular growth over the past decade or so (see Fast Company’s profile of GEICO’s agency at:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/116/features-clan-of-the-caveman.html?page=0%2C3
GEICO attributes its stellar growth to its direct response approach. Embedded within its funny and creative ad scripts is, in every case, a call to action – an invitation to customers to do something.
Don’t believe it? Take a look at a few GEICO commercials:
http://www.geico.com/about/commercials/
Notice how often you see or hear: Call 800-947-AUTO or “15 minutes could save you 15%…”
These are very subtle, very effective calls to action. They directly invite viewers to take specific kinds of action while addressing major insurance buying/switching issues (price, hassle, time).
GEICO and its agency, the Martin Agency, really get direct response. And the results have been outstanding.
What About Direct Response Branding?
The magic of GEICO’s approach is that it envelopes branding in the process of creating direct response. Ask anybody who the magical,mystical gekko represents, they’ll tell you GEICO. And ask, “what’s GEICO?” and pretty likely you’ll hear something about “car insurance.”
You probably wouldn’t have to dig too deeply into the experience to get them to spit out “15 minutes can save you 15 percent.” That’s sweet branding. And it’s bundled with the values of direct response (call, click or visit an agent).
Direct response branding turns traditional branding completely on its head. In traditional branding, the “brand” is the presentation and the “response” if it is considered at all, is an ethereal assumption.
In direct response branding, the response is the keystone. The brand comes along for the ride.
For marketers forced by the current economic climate to actually consider their performance in real dollar terms, direct response branding is becoming a very attractive proposition, indeed.
