Direct Response vs. Brand Advertising

Only One Turns Money into Wealth

Who should listen: Small business owners who need to better understand the differences between direct response marketing and  brand marketing, plus insight about where to invest their marketing budgets.

Key idea: You need to balance your use of both direct response and brand marketing, but the means to a successful campaign is to know the difference between the two and why you would select one over the other.

Especially when you’re just starting out, there’s one question whose answer will drive the majority of your business decisions, including your decision about the type of marketing strategy you should use:

What will make me money now?

When you first start a business, you need fast money to sustain it. After all, you need to establish a stable financial footing to pay the bills today before you can start dreaming about tomorrow.

But as you grow and are able to point to some capital reserves, your thoughts and strategies should evolve. Rather than only considering what you can do to secure the next dollar, you have the breathing room to think about the future—and what you want your business to become.

Those early days, when your business is small and young, favor implementing a direct response marketing strategy: marketing intended to drive an immediate response from prospects with a clear call to action that generates business.

Later, brand marketing should start to move up your list of priorities. With brand marketing, the goal is to establish a relationship with your clients or customers in which they’re not only are aware of your business, but also recognize what it stands for. Brand marketing promotes your good reputation, one in which your product and services are evidence of the quality and benefits you provide.

To be clear, your strategy should always include both direct response and brand advertising. But, as your business becomes more established, communicating your brand can take on greater importance.

In this Silver Dollar episode, we talk more about the differences between direct response marketing and brand marketing, and we offer you examples of both.

We discuss the relatively straightforward way of calculating the ROI of direct response marketing, and the more challenging aspects of knowing the ROI associated with brand marketing (remembering that the goals for each are different).

And we admit to getting a bit more excited about the long-term benefits of brand marketing, the trust that it can build, and the path it can lay to a future where new business comes to you.

Enjoy this episode and be sure to download our free e-book: The Relationship Marketer’s Guide to Branding.

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