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Marketing Your Direct-To-Consumer Distribution Business

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Written by Linda P. Morton

Monday, 26 May 2008

Marketing is your most important job if you own of a direct-to-consumer distribution business.

by LindaP.Morton

Marketing is your most important job if you own of a direct-to-consumer distribution business.

Starting a direct-to-consumer distribution business is less expensive than a warehouse distribution business. Plus it's easier to manage. Still you have move a lot of products to build a profitable direct-to-consumer distribution business.

The disadvantage of a direct-to-consumer distribution business is that all your profit has to come from product sales because you generally don't store other's products in your warehouse so you can't charge a warehousing fee. Thus, you have to market well, or you won't sell enough products to build a lucrative business.

Know Your Target Market

Your business research must include identifying your target market and the products that they buy. This research greatly affects your marketing.

Large distributors have already cornered the market for high volume products. So your best chance of building a profitable direct-to-consumer distribution business is to go after the business that they're missing by targeting a market that they aren't serving.

Identifying your target market is just the first phase in your research. Next you have to research the needs, wants, buying power, and expectations of the people in your target market.

Using The Internet To Market Your Direct-To-Consumer Distribution Business

The Internet is quickly becoming the marketing medium of choice for many direct-to-consumer distribution business owners.

Many publishers of information products distribute direct-to-consumers by immediately downloading digital products to their customers' computers. It's quick, inexpensive, and serves customers desires for immediate gratification.

You can also market real products online by working with drop shippers. These are often manufacturers of the products, but are sometimes warehouse distributors. Any way, all you have to do is sell the product and collect your commission checks. The drop shipper does the rest.

Internet marketing is similar and different to marketing through other media. The major difference is that Internet marketing requires more narrow target marketing than most media. These narrow target markets are often referred to as niche markets. They require that you learn even more information about the people in them in order to attract them to your site and sell them your products.

The better you know your target market, the better you will be able to get them to your site. And you need to get lots of people to your site in order to make any decent money. With conversion ranges from one to four percent, you'll need between 25 and 100 people to make one sale.

The biggest expense to Internet marketing setting up your web site and doing your market research. Once that's done, you'll find Internet marketing the least costly approach to marketing your direct-to-consumer distribution business.

Marketing Your Direct-To-Consumer Distribution Business Through Direct Mail

Direct mail is another relatively inexpensive way to market your direct-to-consumer distribution business. Just follow the steps below:

Select potential customers that you can identify with demographics and buying preferences,

Use a reputable list service to get addresses of target market members,

Producing a good direct mail package that will appeal to your target market members, and

Fulfilling and mailing orders.

Sales can be lost and your business ruined in any of the above steps. Even when you implement each step effectively, sales conversions for direct mail campaigns are only about 1 percent. Thus you have to do the math and know that you can make a profit if you only sell once for every 100 packages that you mail.

You can cut direct mail costs by using a one-two approach. First, send your mailing list a postcard requesting a response. Then follow-up with a complete package of sales materials.

While direct mail marketing costs more than Internet marketing, it costs less than most other ways of marketing your direct-to-consumer distribution business.

Summary

Two other good marketing tactics for marketing your direct-to-consumer distribution business include selling by telephone and through infomercials.

About the Author:

You can read about telephone marketing for your Direct To Consumer Distribution Business and link from there to related posts. You can also get a free report on Marketing Your Small Business

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