Principles of Direct Marketing - Research Paper Example

Principles of Direct Marketing The Facts: The direct media used for this communication is internet. This email had arrived on Wednesday, October 20, 2010, at around 8 O’clock in morning. The Device: Description: The communication was in the form of an email. The subject line was “Grab the opportunity before it elapse”. The email was quite colourful, having a picture of Santa holding a bag. From the bag, gifts were continuously coming out and on each gift, the word “discount” was flashing.

The whole body of the e-mail had small pictures of gifts, balloons, stars and bells. I received the mail early morning, and as soon as I clicked on the inbox, my attention went straight to that mail. Offer: This email was regarding Christmas sale taking place in a shopping mall in which high discounts were offered on different gift items, clothes, jewellery electronic items, toys and many more. It was stated that one can avail discounts up to 80 percent on different items. The creativity: The email was designed in a manner that would seek immediate attention.

The email used different icons like Santa, gifts, balloons and other decorative objects to create a Christmas feel. The colour combination was restricted to bright hues like red, white and black. Flash was used to make things livelier. Cost: Since the mode of communication was an email, hence the cost of sending the document was nil. However, the company had to pay for developing the graphics of the email. The single mail was send to millions of persons at a practically negligible price. Analysis: The shopping mall was trying to reach out to shoppers purchasing for Christmas and thanksgiving.

The company attempted to target that customer base that uses internet on a regular basis to communicate and prefers to purchase goods from shopping malls. This email was used as a tool by the shopping mall to motivate the target customers to purchase gifts and other goods for Christmas and thanksgiving from them. With time, the degree of competition has increased in the retail market. The companies thereby resort to aggressive advertising and attractive promotional tools to attract customers.

This mail was a part of the marketing campaign of the company. It was used for making people aware of different marketing promotional tools like high rate of discount, coupons for free lunch and free passes for the theme park to selected customers. The reason for targeting me is, I believe, that I visit the mall far too often. There I filled a form for luck draw where I was asked to provide my name, some personal details along with my email id. The company might have accessed my personal details from such data base.

The email was indeed very attractive. The graphics and texts were designed in manner that grabbed immediate eyeballs. However, some information was exaggerated that did create a negative impression on the reader’s mind. If I wasn’t in this class I might not have responded to this email. The fact that Christmas and thanksgiving is just a month away is a reason good enough to respond to this mail. I think this communication process will help the shopping mall to attract more customers in this festive season.

Though the email was quite effective in conveying the information but more innovation could have been done in the manner in which the information is presented. This would have made the mail more comprehendible and attractive for the readers. Bibliography Kimmel, A. J. Marketing communication: new approaches, technologies, and styles. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. 2005.