Part 1: Defining Direct Response Advertising
Direct Response marketing is accountable. It is advertising you can justify and track. Not only is direct response marketing measurable but it can easily be adapted to fit your advertising budget.

Direct marketing includes organization, planning, pricing your marketing campaign to a targeted group of customers. Effective direct response marketing should provide list selection and purchasing assistance as well as design of your print media or Web site. Most importantly providing follow up service with back-end analysis, fulfillment of orders and inquiries this allows a small business to test and measure campaigns quickly and inexpensively.

A small business can then focus on the most profitable segments of a campaign. Direct response marketing is efficient. Its small target groups made up of the most interested prospects for a product or service. Direct response advertising can be used in variations to support marketing and promotional activities for driving traffic to your Web site or inquiries for a new financial product or service. Benefits drive direct marketing. If you don't already think of your marketing in terms of benefits, now is a good time to start. Direct marketing is like no other form of advertising since you have control over your message and you control everything; color, design, potential or current customers with a list, your budget and payment options.

Direct Marketing is immediate and personal. What is more immediate and personal than a letter? New opt-in e-mail technologies allow you to reach thousands of prospects in minutes with a personalized message including name and personal interests. Direct marketing is a more testable form of advertising. Every mailing campaign you run is an opportunity for you to test something and gain information that can help you improve your marketing. You always have the opportunity to test different lists, offers and packages. You need to have a good tracking program in place to do this effectively.

Part 2: The money is in the list
You can use direct response marketing to build a database. Whenever a prospect buys from you simply add their name and purchase information to your database. The quickest way to build a database is to offer a free brochure for example (9 ways to retire 10 years early or free quotes and 30 days of free life insurance.) The reason for your database is to re-sell to your prospects again and again and test cross selling techniques for free. This brochure can be plugged in to your web site for download or you can personally make an appointment with your prospect and hand them a brochure in person.

Successful sales professionals know that the more they know about their customers and prospects, the better they will be able to sell to them. The same is true in direct marketing and the list is the key resource. The first step to direct response success both online and offline is in the list. The only difference today is that the Internet has made it much faster and cheaper to compile permission based opt-in lists from your customer prospects.

Even a great product at a reduced price would be useless if it is presented to the wrong prospects. You must target your prospect to generate traffic for your product by Web site or mail.

Part 3: Direct Marketing Strategy
The offer is often referred to as the deal. This is what people get for their money. Whether you're planning a direct marketing strategy, evaluating a campaign or writing an ad much of the work revolves around three important elements. The offer the list and the creative and these elements can work together, or separately, to make your direct marketing promotion work.

The offer is the product or service being sold and includes any warranties, guarantees, features, and price and credit terms. The offer could also be the actions someone needs to take to place an order, like a shopping cart or form on a Web site or a reply card in a bulk mailing.

Always strive to improve your offer by testing different elements of an offer.

Part 4: Direct Marketing Creative
Your actual copy and graphic design is important in direct response but less than a well defined strategy using your offer and a targeted list. Write a sales letter for entry-level products or service's and feature it on your home page. Write a sales letter convincing prospects to send an e-mail requesting a sales representative to contact them. Offer free reports, or an e-zine to build the list, personalizing with first name last name, title, zip-code. Using mail/merge software will increase responses and will separate you from the clutter of emails prospects get. (These are opt-in customers that have asked for more information about your product or service by email or phone and is not considered spamming). These methods are effective and inexpensive to test and implement for a small business. Compiling a list of current customers and inquiries is the first step towards building your customer database.