Integrating Direct Marketing with Social Media

Integrated marketing is like riding a bike. It’s much easier once you overcome the inertia. And, once

you’ve done it, you never forget the feeling.

Apart from integrating other businesses into direct marketing, we have a great platform called Social

media to integrate with. Integration of social media allows us to have relationships beyond order and

fulfillment and to expand our reach. Many direct marketers follows this integration with social media to

expand the reach and, TC World Ltd., is one among them.

How we do business is rapidly changing. Social media cannot stand alone as a viable marketing channel.

And Yes, Facebook has introduced social commerce by allowing shopping carts within their platform.

And, people are using it successfully. But, here’s the secret they don’t want you to know. Social

commerce is the integration of social media and e-commerce. If you don’t know how to use e-

commerce to grow a business, you won’t be successful at social commerce.

Social media makes direct marketing better. You can grow your business without ever tweeting, posting,

or friending, but it will be stronger and more sustainable with a good social media strategy. This is

because social media allows you to have a one-to-one connection with your customers that used to

require a storefront. This improves relationships, lifetime value, lifespan, and ROI.

Direct marketing is still the best way to motivate people to buy. Knowing how to use (or manipulate) a

tool or a platform doesn’t make a person a marketer. Marketing is part art and part science. It takes

years of experience to know how to get people to choose your products or services to solve their

problems. Integration takes time. It’s a process and it can be extremely painful. Integrating direct

marketing and social media takes even more time. You have to build a community of qualified people

before you’ll see results. Shortcutting the process doesn’t move you closer to the end. It derails the

initiative.

Now get on your integration bike and start peddling to overcome the inertia. Before long, you’ll be

ready for the high-speed lane.