Direct marketing strategies and techniques for sales professionals.

Salespeople have been slow to take advantage of the direct marketing phenomenon - especially those in the service sector. If they would let direct mail do their prospecting for them, they would have more time to concentrate on service and follow-up.

Last year I presented a seminar for executives

at Lucent Technologies. When the presentation was over, four different sales managers approached me and asked if I could speak to their people about using direct marketing to build sales. This is happening more and more each time I speak. Sales people who have been slow to jump on the direct marketing bandwagon are suddenly anxious to know how it could work for them.

I learned about using direct marketing as a sales tool years ago when I was working on the IBM account at Wunderman. IBM had traditionally used their sales team to call on small businesses needing data processing and word processing supplies. They had determined that it cost them about $200 per sales call (which would be much higher today). They decided they could service those companies more efficiently through direct mail.

Our goal at the agency was, therefore, to build relationships with those small businesses. So we developed the first "magalog," a catalog in magazine format that not only sold products, but also included short articles with important information for small business owners. IBM could now let the magalog make "sales calls" for them, freeing up their people to call on larger accounts. The best news was that those smaller marginal businesses became highly profitable for them.

For years, different kinds of companies, from Lillian Vernon offering personalized products, to MCI selling telephone service, to American Express promoting credit cards, have used direct mail as their sales representatives. Yet real live salespeople have been slow to take advantage of the direct marketing phenomenon - especially those in the service sector. I belong to the Financial Women's Association here in New York. So do a lot of financial planners, who always tell me they get most of their business by networking. They also tell me how difficult it is to find the time to network for new prospects and still have time to service their clients. If they would let direct mail do their prospecting for them, they would have more time to concentrate on service and follow-up.