I assume you've landed on this article because you've discovered that apparently there's a fight going on in marketing land.

This is not a full-fledged article, just a short reminder of what Direct Response (DR) marketing is and what it's strengths are.

What IS Direct Response Marketing?

Simply:

1. Higly alluring advertising,
2. carefully written to attract the exact kind of customer a business wants more of
3. That entices those people to DO something right away.

That might be to sign up for a beta test. To join your email list. To visit your webshop. To book a call with your sales team.

The idea is to put out advertising that makes the right people go: "Man! This is exactly what I need right now, lemme do this thing real quick."

You know: Build distribution so you can advertise to more and more people with the same amount of effort.

In other words, DR marketing is:

1. Emotionally intense
2. Highly targeted
3. Asks for immediate action

Here's Where "The War" Between Branding & Direct Response Gets Stupid:

Brand advertising builds a positive vibe around a brand, while building "brand awareness" (ie, how many people know about your biz).

But!

Direct response needs emotional intensity in order to entice people to take a certain action. And the strongest emotional appeals (in 2024 at least) are your prospect's identity and innermost (often hidden) desires. To make prospects immediately feel that they're part of a community. That your company gets them.

Which...
(HOLY SHIT)
...is what brand advertising wants to do.

The War Is Basically Misguided, Biased and Unhelpful

Driven by two archetypes in advertising - the greedy, unempathic direct response "Bro" who is all about his next paycheck. The type of salesman that loves cold calling because it's all about hustle, pressure and closing.

And the sensitive daisy - The "creatives" who get Writer's Blocked if conditions aren't right. These marketers love "pretty", they love design and they LOVE fonts. You can recognize them by their 100% inbound strategy for their own business because they like making friends online, but they don't like asking for the sale.

(Take a moment to consider the usefulness of a marketers that is skittish about selling)

My Point:

Neither of these archetypes are a long-term play...

The DR "bro" tends to burn your audience, which leads to a constant need to outgrow your own churn rate. The daisy marketer tends to underperform in the short term and will burn through cash before the brand-effect really starts working.

In Other Words:

The war is stupid, and (in my arrogant but correct opinion) propagated by people who don't know how to lean on the strengths of "the other" marketing approach, because the most effective marketing approach is to:

This is 100% doable for people who know how to:

1. Research markets in order to tease out the innermost workings of that market's prospects
2. Write emotional copy
3. Kindly and respectfully ask for the things they want

Which brings to this final -and vital- part of this post:

If You Would Like To Know How Your Business Can Build Strong Relationships While Selling Then...

... Book a free chat with me and I'll get you sorted
(Click the link to see how the process works)