DIRECT RESPONSE VS BRANDING CAMPAIGNS

Direct response advertising and branding are two different styles of marketing. Rather than putting all of your advertising budget into one or the other, you should balance them somewhat equally. Direct response advertising fulfills short-term goals and branding provides long-term ones. By better understanding these two different types of advertising, you can make smart decisions when allocating your budget.



Let’s take a closer look at the differences between direct response advertising and branding.


Direct Response: Direct response marketing is used by companies to generate immediate sales or traffic. Companies may use it to grow their customer base, launch a new product or clear out an excess of inventory. An important part of direct response campaigns is a call to action, which gets customers to act immediately.


Branding:
Branding campaigns are used by companies to build up a certain image for their brand. Some of the elements that companies focus on is the offering of high-quality service or affordable products.



How Direct Response and Branding Work Together



As you can see, both styles of marketing work together to benefit each other. Branding takes time to develop, and you won’t see results right away. Instead, you’ll spend your time targeting customers, reaching out to them via phone, email and social media and nurturing the relationship. The goal will be to build up your brand’s image so that the customer learns to trust you. Once this trust is established, the sales will come, and you can expect that you will earn more on each sale.



However, since branding does take time, direct response campaigns are great for boosting sales in the short term. You can use call to actions like “call now” or stop in today” to award customers with a discount, free item or limited stock of product. These campaigns initiate an immediate response so you’ll see results right away, but the customers may not necessarily have any feeling toward your brand.



When both direct response and branding come together, you have the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, there is often conflict between the two rather than harmony. Too many companies focus their efforts on one or the other rather than allowing them to feed into each other. You may be doing the same thing as well. With a new year approaching, take the time to reevaluate your marketing strategy and make sure that you are giving appropriate attention to both direct response and branding campaigns.


EmoticonEmoticon