Building a Brand versus Getting Direct Response

Marketing has become extremely easy to track.  Measuring your ROI from your marketing spend, especially online, is available to everyone.  I have seen this cause a shift in the way people market.  Most brands I speak with are looking for their CPA.  How much do they spend, and how many customers or how much revenue does that bring in?

The issue is, the long term goal of brand building is suffering more and more.  Here, I will outline the benefits and tactics of building a brand versus driving direct response.

Brand Building

Building a brand is the backbone of any long term, consumer facing business.  What is the lifestyle around your products?  Why do I want to give your company money? The most important questions consumers ask and the only way to answer is with a strong brand.

If you want to:

• Build long-term customer engagement
• Bring in evangelists
• Create a long-lasting company
• Increase long term revenue
• Engage your customers on an emotional level

Then you need to focus on building a brand identity.

The issues with focusing on building a brand are:

• Lower immediate ROI
• Higher risk (with the results being more long-term, you are generally going to spend more money before seeing results)
• Hard to track response

Direct Response Marketing

Direct Response is marketing done to make the the largest immediate ROI.  It is extremely tempting for companies to focus on these marketing channels because they can see the affect to their bottom line immediately.

If you want:

• To increase revenue in the short-term
• Show immediate growth
• Closely gauge your financials and ROI
• Lower your risk

then direct response is the way to go.

The issues are:

• The long term benefits of direct response are much less
• Customers are generally driven to purchase your product, but are less emotionally engaged, which means less likely to return or share
• Does not create an identity for your brand, which hinders long term customer engagement

Conclusion

When deciding whether to build a brand or get direct response, make sure you understand the value of both.  Most companies can benefit from a mix, but if you are in it to create a long lasting product and company, do not sacrifice building your identity, for your immediate returns.

For any questions or comments, please feel free to email erik@hawkemedia.com