Not all small business advertising efforts are intended to make a sale immediately. There’s advertising and promotion that’s intended to raise brand image, improve consumer awareness in a given company, product, or service, and marketing materials that hopefully will elicit an instant response or sale.

Direct response marketing may take many forms, from short-form advertising copy (such as print ads, contextual PPC advertising, radio spots, TV commercials and the like) to longer marketing messages like full page, text-heavy ads, advertorials and the Dale Carnegie-style sales letter. All work and depend on what product or service you’re offering, and who you’re trying to sell it to; which you already know if you’ve spent more than ten minutes in marketing. – but when you reach your audience with your message matters just as much as everything else.

The Right Message To The Right Market In The Right Media At The Right Time

Direct response advertising campaigns rely on these four factors. – and we’ll briefly cover all four below:

Message: If you’re unable to effectively tell your audience about the advantages of your product or service over your competition’s, then it doesn’t matter how awesome your product or service really is. – you won’t make many or any sales. Appealing to your audience on many levels, especially on an emotional one, can cause them to jump into action immediately. We’ll cover more about how to craft an attention getting message that closes the deal later.

Market: Again, it doesn’t matter what your product or service is or how great it may be or even how compelling your message is if you’re trying to sell to the wrong audience. In other words, don’t bring coal to Newcastle. You should already know who your target market is before you begin trying to craft a direct response campaign to reach them – and if you don’t, it’s time to go back to the drawing board and start over with some in-depth market research. Knowing who you’re product or service appeals to is the only way to create an effective direct response message.

Media: Depending on the demographics, and other areas that your marketing research has focused on, greatly come into play when choosing the type of media to use to attract your target audience. Depending on who they are, some types of media will be more effective than others. Some groups will be more receptive to direct mail, others to print advertising and still others to email marketing, banner ads and other online marketing strategies. Just like getting ready for a speech, you need to know who your audience is going to be in order to create an effective impact with your message and direct response method.

Moment: Timing is just as important as targeting the right audience with the proper message using the correct form of media. What’s the right time, you ask? It’s not when you’re ready to sell but rather when your target market is ready to buy. You’re always in sell mode, but even after choosing the proper demographics your customers may not always be ready to buy.

Ensuring that you reach the right people at the right time involves a combination of these four factors: message, market, media, and moment. They’re all important parts of a direct response marketing campaign that typically generates positive results and good returns.

There are a few ways of doing this. You can stay in constant contact with prospects by using email messages or auto-responder software. If they’re more prone to offline marketing, then by running regular advertisements in the media channels that have the most influence in your targeted demographic is a good way to reach them.

But any way you look at it, these are the 4 componenets of successful small business advertising…

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