The Potential Advantages of Direct Marketing - Essay Example

Direct Marketing of Institute] Direct Marketing Introduction Direct marketing is considered one of the efficient and influentialways to communicate with its customers. It is mainly done on the physical marketing material to communicate about the product and services of the organization. However, the digitalization and constant development of the technologies has greatly influenced means of advertisement to communicate with consumers. The organizations are inclined towards direct marketing channels, as it emphasizes more on customers and proves to positively impacts overall returns on investment of the company. The present research is conducted to determine the role of direct marketing and its potential benefits for the companies to acquire a competitive advantage in the industries. The primary aim of the study is to investigate how direct marketing activities contributes to the creation of competitive advantages. Therefore, primary research is gathering primary data from the (N=20) respondents from the survey questionnaires. The other section of the report presents a brief discussion based on the information and responses obtained. Research Question The main objective of this study is to determine the potential advantages of direct marketing techniques and its role in the creation of competitive marketing strategies. On the basis of prose research objectives, the following are the research questions for the study: What is the role of direct marketing in the creation of competitive edge for the firms? How direct marketing activities affects performance, promotion and brand equity of organizations? What factors influences choices and returns obtained through direct marketing activities? Questionnaire Design Keeping in the mind of research questions and objectives, research has conducted a survey to gather information. The questionnaire is a research instrument that contains written set of questions to gather information from the respondents. The researchers make use of questionnaires together information from the respondents about the specific issue or area aims to be investigated. The questionnaires are used to gather information and opinions from the researcher that is cheaper and convenient. The questionnaires developed for this research is based on the research objectives underlay to collect exploratory information to develop understanding of the research questions. The questionnaires is composed of 10 questions in total, in which question 1 and 2 refer to demographic characteristics of the respondents, whereas the rest 8 question are specifically related to the research questions. The questionnaires are composed of closed-ended as well as open-ended questionnaires. It indicates exploratory questionnaires are developed to address and evaluated to gather information. The responses obtained from the close-ended questionnaires are based on Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5. The open-ended questionnaires are exploratory questionnaires that provide detailed answers by revealing the opinion of the respondents on the related research question. The questionnaire consist of a variety of questions that includes open ended and close ended questions that provides detailed empirical and statistical information regarding the topic. The questionnaire is composed of total ten questions that are aligned with a flow that eventually link with one another. Each of the questions in the questionnaires is developed on the basis of the past literature and gained knowledge that addresses research objectives of the study. The incorporation of each question is justified on the basis of the reasons. It is ensured that the questions are related to research questions prose that is justified on the basis of the past literature. Thus, each of the questions is also linked with the literature. The following table explains each question of the study: Question Reason for Asking Link to Research Questions / Hypotheses Link to Literature Q1: What is your gender? The gender will tell about the number of males and female participated. The reason to ask this is the question is because It tells overall demographic characteristic of a representative sample size of the study. The gender tells about the average proportion of male and female as marketing managers of the firms and difference in their perception of direct marketing activities (Ferrell, 2009) Make use of demographic features to determine prevailing consumer patterns, opinion, behavior and perception varies in different genders. The gender plays a major role to determine the design, patterns and advertisement techniques that are implied to promote a product. Q2: What is your age? Age is also a demographic characteristic and tells about the average age of the people who have participated in the survey and how the age level of participants affects their opinion about the issue. Age determines the average age of people engaged in the direct marketing profession (Hsu, 2011) in the study carefully identifies targeted audience and their age for the development, designing of the product. Q3: You can use direct marketing as a competitive edge? The question allows revealing the prevailing market perception about using direct marketing as a mean to create a competitive edge in the industry. It will also tell about the proportion to what extend direct marketing is used. It tells about the perception of the participants that perceive direct marketing as competitive edge (Norwood, Mulvenna, Buchner, & Grant, 2011) in the study reveal relationship between direct marketing and competitive advantage Q4: Market survey is one thing that would help you to improve your direct marketing activities? It explains how effective market surveys are to design strategically direct marketing activities. In addition, it also tells about the role of marketing survey to improve marketing activities of the company. It tells about how the marketing survey helps in promoting direct marketing activities. (Christopher, Payne, & Ballantyne, 2013) identify the use of the marketing survey and its information as a measure to improve marketing activities Q5: On a scale from 1-5 do you believe, Customer loyalty is an advantage that you have accrued as a result of using direct marketing? It shares to what extend the use of direct marketing affects customer loyalty with the products of the organization. In addition, it will tell about the role of direct marketing towards customer loyalty and how it has affected customer’s responses and revenues of the company. Investigate the impacts of direct marketing on promotion, performance and value creation of the business (Keillor, 2009) in the study reveal the use of direct marketing techniques to strengthen communication of the organization developing customer loyalty Q6: On a scale from 1-5 do you believe, Client decline is one of the direct marketing challenges to encounter? Direct marketing is exposed to different challenges. The question will tell about to which extent the client decline has created obstacles for the company. Determine the factors affecting direct marketing activities and its performance (Keillor, 2009) Identify the challenges faces in twentieth century. The decline in the clients as a major marketing challenge Q7: On a scale from 1-5, Word of mouth is the most important in the promotion and labeling of direct marketing products? Word of mouth is one of the components of direct marketing techniques. This question will tell about to what extend a word of mouth plays a role to promote and labeling of the brand with its products using direct marketing approach. One of the factors that is essential for the promotion and labeling of direct-marketed products (Czinkota & Ronkainen, 2013) Examines word of mouth techniques that are used for the promotion and labeling of the products. Q8: On a scale from 1-5 do you believe, an age bracket of 20 years is good for one to operate in the direct marketing businesses? It reveals about the actual options of the age group of the firms and individuals that can make use of a direct marketing business. The average period in which the firms in the industry should focus to make use of a direct marketing business. The age is the determinant of the performance and market position of the company in the industry. (Berthon, 2012) in the study examine the relationship between the age factor in the direct marketing business Q9: What words are the most important in the promotion and labeling of direct-marketed products? The question will tell about the words that affect promotion and labeling of direct-marketed products. It tells about the different words that are used in the promotion and labeling of the marketed products. (Hsu, 2011) Identifies different promotion and labeling techniques used in the direct marketed products. Q10: What is that one thing that would help you to improve your direct marketing activities? It briefly explains the ways that can be adopted in order to improve direct marketing activities. It reveals in depth understanding the factors that influenced the effectiveness of direct marketing activities. As prose in the research question, it provides detailed information about the ways in which direct marketing activities can be improved. (Boone & Kurtz, 2013) Brief about the different techniques that are used improve direct marketing activities. Discussion Based on the resulted obtained, it can be identified that the majority were male participants 57.89 percent, whereas only 42.11 percent were females. When the respondents were asked about their age 75 percent of the respondents were between the ages 18 to 24 years, 15 percent belonged to age group 25 to 44 years and only 10 percent belonged to 35 to 44 years. It indicates that the majority were young people and fresh graduates working as marketing managers in different companies. The majority of the respondents agreed that the use of direct marketing as a competitive edge. 75 percent of the respondents made use of direct marketing as a competitive edge, 15 percent replied no and 10 percent did not know. Further, respondents were asked if the marketing survey helped them to improve direct marketing activities. The majority of the respondents agreed that the marketing survey helped them to improve direct marketing activities, whereas only 25 percent didn’t know about the use of marketing survey. When the respondents were asked if the use of direct marketing activities improves customer loyalty, 35.29 percent were neutral and agreed that the use of the direct marketing activities develops customer loyalty. When the respondents were asked if the client decline is the major challenge for direct marketing, the results show 29.41 percent agreed. On the contrary, 17.65 percent disagreed that the decline in the client was a major challenge. 43.75 percent of the respondents agreed that the use of the word of mouth for the promotion and labeling of the direct marketed products is essential, and 31.25 percent were neutral about it. In addition, majority of the participants agreed that the use of the age bracket of 20 years is essential to operate in direct marketing business, only 5.88 percent of the participants disagreed that the use of 20 years of age bracket is good for operating in direct marketing business. On the basis of the responses obtained from the open-ended questions of the survey, the respondents were asked what words are improved for the promotion and labeling of direct marketing. One of the interviewees responded that quality is the most important factor for the promotion and labeling of direct-marketed products. Boone & Kurts (2013) in the study also claim that the quality plays the crucial role in the promotion and labeling of the products in the market. However, prices are also a dominant factor but that is dependent on the type of the product and substitutes available of the product in the market (Boone & Kurtz, 2013). In addition, one of the respondents stated that he ‘word which will arouse the curiosity of the customers’ should be used for the promotion and labeling of direct-marketed products. It indicates that the customer’s behavior and preference are the major factor that affects the choice of the words used in each market for the labeling and promotion of the products. The statement of the respondent can be supported by the findings of Czinkot & Ronkanien (2013) in which it was highlighted that international marketing the use of the channels, words, taglines, and logos was dependent on the preference of the customer. Therefore, use of the regional and local celebrities is found to be more effective, especially the logos in the regional languages are effective ways to gain the attention of customers (Czinkota & Ronkainen, 2013). Further, the respondents were asked about the things that they belied were helpful to improve direct marketing. One of the interviewee respondent ‘be creative and use this opportunity to showcase your brand and its professional image, Ensure it communicate who you are’. It shows that the use of the creativity plays the major role in the improving of direct marketing activities. The idea presented by the respondent can be supported by the findings of the study of Berthon (2012) in which it was indicated that the use of effective communicating means with the fusion of creative ideas plays a significant role to make advertisement effective (Berthon, 2012). In the similar manner, Kitchen & Burgmann (2010) in the study claim that the use of the integrated marketing techniques is one of the effective mean to get closer to the customers (Kitchen & Burgmann, 2010). Method Survey The researcher made use of emailed survey questionnaire to gather responses from the participants. The questionnaires were emailed to the marketing managers of the different companies to gather their perspectives on direct marketing activities and its impact on business performance. The reason for selecting emailed questionnaires was because of convince of the researcher and respondents because of their busy schedule. It is one of the cheap, easy and effective mean to gather responses from the participants. Sample Size The researcher made use of purposive sampling for the selection of participants. The reason purposive sampling is selected is because it allows the researcher to select the participants that share similar characteristics of that of a larger population. Selection of Participants Keeping in the mind the research objective of the study, 20 marketing managers of different companies were selected to conduct the study. However, there is no discrimination between genders was made; it was to ensure that the selection of the participants was done unbiased. Ethical Consideration It is essential to ensure that the study meets ethical standards conducting the study. Therefore, information of the research participants is kept strictly private and confidential. The researcher has been given creditability by putting in text citation to avoid plagiarism. In addition, it is ensured that the research is free from fabrication and falsification of the information. Hence, the results and findings of the study are interpreted on the basis of the information gathered from the survey. Conclusion On the basis of the above discussion, it can be concluded that the direct marketing activities play a significant role for the companies in the creation of competitive advantages. The finding of the study revealed that the use of the direct marketing activities positively impact customer loyalty and develops a stronger relation with the customers. However, the promotion and labeling of direct-marketed products, words and designing is based on the customer’s preference and behavior. In addition, it can also be identified from the study theta the use of the direct marketing activities is influenced by the choices of words, as well as word of mouth has a positive impact on the overall promotion and labeling of direct-marketed products. However, the type of the product and the target market is a crucial aspect that determines the choices of the means of direct marketing activities for each organization. References Berthon, P. (2012). Marketing meets Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers: Implications for international marketing strategy. Business Horizon, 261-271. Boone, L., & Kurtz, D. (2013). Contemporary marketing. Mason: Cengage Learning. Christopher, M., Payne, A., & Ballantyne, D. (2013). Relationship Marketing. New York: Routledge. Czinkota, M., & Ronkainen, I. (2013). International marketing. Mason: Cengage Learning. Ferrell, W. P. (2009). Marketing. Mason: Cengage Learning. Hsu, Y. (2011). Design innovation and marketing strategy in successful product competition. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 26(4), 223-236. Keillor, B. D. (2009). Marketing in the 21st Century: Integrated marketing. London: Greenwood Publishing Group. Kitchen, P. K., & Burgmann, I. (2010). Integrated Marketing Communication. Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2006). Marketing Management (12th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Norwood, M., Mulvenna, M., Buchner, A., & Grant, C. (2011). Buildign Competitive advantage on the Internet using Relationship Marketing. Londonderry: University of Ulster. Read More