Marketing is your most important job if you own of a direct-to-consumer distribution business.

Starting a direct-to-consumer distribution business is less expensive than a warehouse distribution business. Plus it’s easier to manage. Still you have move a lot of products to build a profitable direct-to-consumer distribution business.

The disadvantage of a direct-to-consumer distribution business is that all your profit has to come from product sales because you generally don’t store other’s products in your warehouse so you can’t charge a warehousing fee. Thus, you have to market well, or you won’t sell enough products to build a lucrative business.

Know Your Target Market

You first have to know who your potential customers are and the types of products that they will buy. Both are marketing decisions.

Because the large warehouse and wholesale distributors already have the business of large volume products that are mass marked, the best approach for a direct-to-consumer distribution is to go after crumbs that fall from their table. In other words, find a product designed specifically for a target market, not presently being well served.

Identifying your target market is just the first phase in your research. Next you have to research the needs, wants, buying power, and expectations of the people in your target market.

Using The Internet To Market Your Direct-To-Consumer Distribution Business

One of the fastest growing ways of marketing a direct-to-consumer distribution business is through the Internet.

One Internet option is digital delivery of products. You can become an affiliate for publishers who sell information products and earn from 20 to 60 percent commissions on sales. The publishers do most of the work and carry most of the expenses. You basically just pre-sale their products and send your customers to their sales pages. Your customers can then immediately download their products without you having to do another thing.

Another option is to sell physical products that are drop-shipped from the manufacturer directly to your customers. You sell the products. Often the order goes directly to the drop shipper. They collect the money and distribute the products. Then they send you a commission check.

Regardless of the type of distribution, the key to success in any Internet business is offering a niche of people the products that they want. Without that focus, your business will be lost in a vast ocean of sites and Internet marketers. So if you choose to market over the Internet, you must define a narrow target market and discover the best appeals for its members.

That’s the only way that you’ll be able to get enough traffic to sell enough to make a profit. Conversion rates range from 0 to 4 percent, with 4 percent considered excellent. So you can’t expect to make more than 4 sales per 100 visitors to your site.

After doing your market research and setting up your web site, doing individual promotions through the Internet is the least expensive way of marketing your direct-to-consumer distribution business.

Direct Mail

By following the steps below, you can use direct mail to market your direct-to-consumer distribution business.

Focusing on a target market that can be identified by demographics and buying behavior,

Buying a good mailing list of just the people in the target market,

Producing a good direct mail package that will appeal to your target market members, and

Process and send orders.

Sales can be lost and your business ruined in any of the above steps. Even when you implement each step effectively, sales conversions for direct mail campaigns are only about 1 percent. Thus you have to do the math and know that you can make a profit if you only sell once for every 100 packages that you mail.

You can cut direct mail costs by using a one-two approach. First, send your mailing list a postcard requesting a response. Then follow-up with a complete package of sales materials.

Direct mail is more expensive than individual Internet promotions, but cheaper than most other ways of marketing your direct-to-consumer distribution business.

Summary

More expensive, but effective, ways of marketing your direct-to-consumer distribution business are infomercials and telephone sales.