Direct marketing
- Is action-oriented. It’s an ad with CTA.
- It's about results, immediately about the sale, the funnel, about getting a direct and measured response.
- It's the "limited offer", "click here to subscribe", "buy now" kind of ads.
- It demands to be measured and must be measured (through funnels)
- When it works, it pays for itself. You know how much a sale is worth, and you know how much a direct ad costs. If the math is in your favor, you run the ad, make a profit, run it again, repeat.
- It is cheap. It is safe.
- Start small, test an ad against a small group, if it works, take it to the next level: the maximum number of people within your audience you can possibly reach with your budget.
- But if it doesn't work with the initial small group, change it and test again. Change one thing at a time until it works.
- Will your direct marketing get your brand remembered? Maybe. But that’s a side effect, not the point.
Brand marketing
- Is a whole different story. It is culturally oriented.
- It’s about showing up in places where you’re welcome, with memorable stories, images, and experiences that stick with the people you seek to serve.
- It’s about building a connection. The shoes you're putting on now, your watch, your laptop, phone. None of those you bought because you stumbled upon an ad calling for the purchase. You bought them because of some connection to the brand. Think of Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Apple, Nike kind of ads.
- It’s not primarily about getting a response. It’s the commercial that doesn’t have a clear CTA. Think of ads of Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Apple, Nike..
- It’s typically not measurable. You can’t tell if it works. It’s a leap. You pay and you pay and you pay and you hope that one day you’ll start getting your money back.
- Procter & Gamble would make a new product, invest in it for 2 years, 50M, 100M, then one day, it becomes an overnight success and makes a fortune. Or maybe it doesn’t, and it miserably fails.
- It is only for people who believe.
- If you’re one of those, then you have to invest 10% of your revenue on brand marketing > Says, Jay Levinson.
- You don’t change your brand advertising because you’re tired of it, or because your wife is tired of it, or because your customer is tired of it. You change your brand advertising only when your accountant is tired of it, when you can't put that 10% in marketing anymore.
- Will your brand marketing lead to sales? Almost certainly. But that’s a side effect, not the point.
If you’re going to do direct marketing, do direct marketing. Test and measure. It doesn’t matter if people remember you or not. All that matters is that people click on the button.
If you’re going to do brand advertising, do brand advertising. Don’t distract yourself (or interrupt the storytelling and experience you’re creating) by trying to get an immediate, measurable response. But you’ll need to be honest about how long it financially makes sense for you to maintain the story you’re telling. It milks your revenue month after month, and you need to endure that hoping that one day it grows exponentially, and it will.
You can do both, but not at the same time.
You can use direct marketing as a helping arm stretched out to guide the people who are already on the same road to get exposed to your brand marketing.
Even if you’re not paying cash for attention, your marketing still costs. It takes time and effort and an investment in trust to get people enrolled. You need to be very thoughtful about the ways you approach your people, the ways you spend your resources, and about what you need to measure (and not to measure).
