Next step is to determine your objectives, strategies and tactics for your direct marketing campaign.
Objectives
This is your goal – what you want to achieve by when and by how much. Use the following SMART formula to determine your objective:
- S is for Specific: the objective needs to be explicit, not furry around the edges
- M is for Measurable: you need to be able to quantify your campaign – eg. a 10% increase in sales
- A is for Attainable: you need to be able to achieve the objective, otherwise it’s not an objective
- R is for Realistic: it can’t be an outlandish target – it needs to be in the realms of possibility, challenging, but not unattainable.
- T is for Timely: it needs to incorporate a time-based measure when your campaign comes to an end.
An example of an appropriate objective might be – to increase sales in Product A in the SME market by 10% by 30 June 2009
Strategy
Your strategy is a succint overview of how you intend to achieve the objective. Strategies could include:
- Acquisition of new customers
- Retention of existing customers
- Growth of business with existing customers
- Winning back lapsed customers
A strategy could be: To increase sales in Product A in the SME market by 10% by 30 June 2009 (our objective) through the acquistion of new customers and growth of business with existing customers.
Tactics
Tactics are the things that you do execute your strategy in order to meet your objective. Each tactic should be quantified individually to determine their overall effectiveness.
In the ‘increase sales’ example above, some possible tactics are:
- A direct mail campaign to all existing customers on the company database offering a 2 for 1 deal
- An email marketing campaign to existing customers offering a 20% discount on a product
