Direct marketers have learned the hard way that one of the greatest enemies of sales success is the human tendency toward inertia. But too often the impulse slips away, never to be revived. An early-bird discount. A reward for acting at once. We would like to see more mainstream marketers using the hot-potato form of activation promotion.
Direct marketers try to make it as easy as possible to order.
They exercise great care in designing simple, friendly order forms. The retail equivalent is a sales clerk who understands what you, the advertiser, have made the customer want, and who is prepared to provide it promptly, pleasantly, and correctly. The brand or product advertiser, alas, has no such sales clerk to rely upon. But filling that gap from afar as well as you can is a key element in the marketing process. Where your product or service falls on the grid indicates the likely desirability of using database information and interaction with individual prospects or customers.