In a highly competitive and digitized world, the success and growth of a business can be attributed to its unique marketing approach and to being in the right place at the right time. Harnessing the most efficient tools and resources can make a significant difference to the sales and profitability of a business and e-mails direct marketing program for consumer engagement can give businesses the edge. Nowadays, social sites have become most popular place for internet user on the Internet. These sites are instrument for building virtual communities with same age, education, lifestyles, idea and interests or to create a variety of activities for individual. Today, these sites have been able to break geographical boundaries and set many people with different cultures and nationalities together. These sites are helped to be broken down into sub networks, based on demographic or geographical preferences. Marketers believe that members of social sites who share information with other members and friends are best target for participation in viral marketing. Their involvement in these social sites allows marketer to spread more the viral content because they naturally want to share information to other members and send interesting content to friends.
Direct Marketing means sending promotional messages to individual customers which are increasingly used by marketers as a result of the explosive growth of customer databases. Direct marketing is increasingly used by firms as customer databases become more available. Internet commerce and services assisted by computer databases (e.g. Telecom subscriptions) allow marketers to identify individual consumers and provide customized offers to them. As a result, customer relationship management (CRM) has grown to be a dynamic field in marketing. Current Direct marketing methods however, generally ignore word-of-mouth communication between customers.
Although marketers have always known that word of mouth has a very powerful influence on customer decisions, until recently, they did not have much information about the individual communication patterns of consumers. As a result, marketing tools built for direct marketing techniques have generally ignored the structure of customer communication networks and were designed to treat individual customers as independent consumption units. Increasingly, however, modern customer databases allow the reconstruction of consumer communication patterns. For instance, social networking is one of the revolutionary new applications of the Internet where members not only reveal certain aspects of their preference but also reveal their friends. The largest such sites, My Space and Face book have over 200 million members and have become powerful advertising media.
Online shopping refers to the process of purchasing products or services via the Internet. The process consists of five steps similar to those associated with traditional shopping behaviour.
In the typical online shopping process, when potential consumers recognize a need for some merchandise or service, they go to the Internet and search for need-related information. However, rather than searching actively, at times potential consumers are attracted by information about products or services associated with the felt need. They then evaluate alternatives and choose the one that best fits their criteria for meeting the felt need. Finally, a transaction is conducted and post-sales services provided.
Direct marketing is any unsolicited contact your business makes with existing or potential customers in order to generate sales or raise awareness. For many businesses, it's by far the most cost-effective form of marketing. From direct mail and leaflet drops to telemarketing and email marketing, it allows you to target customers with greater accuracy than any other method. But careful preparation of direct-marketing campaigns is essential if you are to make the most of your investment, get the response rates you want.
Direct marketing is a channel-agnostic form of advertising that allows businesses and non- profit organizations to communicate straight to the customer, with advertising techniques that can include cell phone text messaging, email, interactive consumer websites, online display ads, database marketing, fliers, catalogue distribution, promotional letters, targeted television commercials, response-generating newspaper/magazine advertisements, and outdoor advertising. Amongst its practitioners, it is also referred to as Direct Response Advertising.
Besides the actual communication, creation of actionable segments, pre- and post-campaign analytics, and measurement of results, are integral to any good Direct Marketing campaign. Characteristics that distinguish direct marketing are:
• A database of names (prospects, customers, businesses, etc.), often with certain other relevant information such as contact number/address, demographic information, purchase habits/history, company history, etc., is used to develop a list of targeted entities with some existing common interests, traits or characteristics. Generating such a database is often considered part of the Direct Marketing campaign.
• Marketing messages are addressed directly to this list of customer and/or prospects. Direct marketing relies on being able to address the members of a target market. Addressability comes in a variety of forms including email addresses, phone numbers, Web browser cookies, fax numbers and postal addresses.
• Direct marketing seeks to drive a specific "call to action." For example, an advertisement may ask the prospect to call a free phone number, mail in a response or order, or click on a link to a website.
• Direct marketing emphasizes traceable, measurable responses, results and costs from prospects and/or customers—regardless of medium.
Mubashir.P
V sem B Com Finance
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