Until last year, before the COVID pandemic, I traveled around the world and saw many people on business. Now, my life (work) style has changed significantly. I just go to work and straight back home. Although people around me would feel the same way, I’m fed up with seeing the same faces at work and home every day. This big change has told me a lot. How much I like my past life (work) style, even though that was always a series of all-night trips. How much important changes and communication with people are to me. I may ask too much for life, but we social animals are not satisfied only with food and drink. Would you agree? If yes, direct marketing is highly recommended for you.
In my definition, the key point of direct marketing is two-way communication, which, I think, makes it completely different from other framework. In most cases, sellers deliver advertising messages to an unspecified large number of public, while direct marketing carefully tunes messages according to customers. The famous example is the phot album of past mobile phones by Soft Bank (No. 3 mobile carrier in Japan). They researched mobile phones a customer has used so far and collected the photos of mobile phones in one album for each customer. Their message made me cry: “Let’s add a new page to the album with us.”
It’s not good in efficiency and takes longer before bearing fruits, but it more than makes up for such disadvantages. We can communicate closely with customers! The COVID pandemic has been doing economic damage to all of us. Among our overseas partners, the Philippines dealer has suffered heaviest from an additional unfortunate accident. I just wanted to do something for them and sent direct messages via Facebook to a number of architects and interior designers in the Philippines. Totally different from Soft Bank, that was just a letter of appeal for help, but surprisingly enough, some of them sent back kind messages. I don’t think what I did produced huge results, but believe the kind replies would surely encourage them. Direct marketing is not a desk theory but the restoration of human communication.
Photo Reference: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rsmdiscovery/2020/05/08/four-simple-ways-to-combat-the-loneliness-caused-by-covid-19/?sh=6c6d17214524
Shungo Ijima
He is travelling around the world. His passion is to explain Japan to the world, from the unique viewpoint accumulated through his career: overseas posting, MBA holder, former official of the Ministry of Finance.