If you already operate a small business or want to start one, Direct Marketing for Beginners will show you what is involved with direct marketing.
The book opens by differentiating between marketing and advertising. You will learn the use of advertising "hooks" and how they differ for the business market and the consumer market. It shows you how to create your message and how to utilize testimonials, endorsements, logos and trademarks.
You will learn about the process of disintermediation to cut out the middleman and increase your profit margins. You are also warned about the balancing act that disintermediation entails.
The next chapter on direct mail advertising will take you through the steps in creating an effective direct mail piece. It shows you how to develop mailing lists and comments on the use of list brokers. You will learn how to save money by using bulk mail rates. Finally, you will get an introduction to database marketing and how to rank your customers using the RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) method.
A whole chapter is devoted to the basics of telephone marketing and another to fax broadcasting.
The chapter on print media shows you how the market is segmented. It covers advertising in newspapers, magazines, trade journals and professional magazines as well as the classifieds.
You will get to read a candid discussion about advertising in the Yellow Pages and directories.
Broadcast media tends to be expensive and often beyond the budget of smaller companies, so you will only get a brief review.
The chapter on creating your own Web site starts by showing you how to register your domain name and select a Web hosting service. You get advice on your home page and tagline together with the use of multimedia and splash pages. You are recommended to observe the "3-Click Rule" and incorporate a site map and search tools. It shows you how to use referrals and testimonials and ways to create a "Sticky Site". It recommends that you include your contact info as well as answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ).
You will learn about the use of cascading style sheets as well as the difference between static and dynamic Web authoring software. You are provided with reviews of eleven different software packages.
Learn about selling your products or service online and the current state of e-commerce and some of the factors involved with marketing of products and the marketing of services. Find out about the essential ingredients of an e-commerce site: the shopping cart; the checkout, methods of payment and payment gateways. Think about offering your customers alternative ways to order and pay. Consider some of the challenges presented by international transactions, fulfilment and the security of transactions. Finally, you can read reviews on six different e-commerce software packages and take a quick look at adopting Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and the role of Trading Partners.
The chapter on search engine optimization shows you how to improve your ranking on search engines. It reveals the role of spiders, crawlers, meta tags, title tags and keywords. It shows you how you can use pay-per-click and other methods to drive traffic to your Web site. Finally, it gives you a sobering look at your average cost-per-order and your return on advertising spending.
You will learn about other ways to drive traffic to your Web site by using links to other sites, Web banners, pop-ups, Web rings, permission-based e-mail and e-newsletters.
You will be given a tour of how to sell at auctions on eBay and how to set up your own eBay store. Helpful hints are provided on how to become a successful seller on eBay.
Examine how exhibiting in trade...