DM Marketing has become the most instant way of connecting to different people across the world on social platforms. While you can reach a new audience by sharing public posts and stories on your Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook, you might still not develop a closer bond without the direct messaging feature.

Everyone craves communication on a more personal level at some point. This is surely why these social platforms have this messaging feature to help you keep in touch and communicate directly with anyone no matter the distance.

However, do you know there is also a business benefit of direct messaging? Do you know you can also win over new prospects for your business using that same messaging feature? I bet you didn’t or maybe you did but don’t really know how to go about it. Whichever guess is right, you are in luck because we are going to discuss this social media strategy called DM Marketing.

What is DM Marketing

DM Marketing fully spelt out as Direct Messaging is a social media marketing strategy that involves building relationships and pitching business initiatives directly to a prospect using the DM features on social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Tiktok, Snapchat, and Whatsapp.

These platforms have their private messaging features designed uniquely to suit their audience. LinkedIn, Whatsapp and Instagram doubles as a private chat and group chat feature. This means you can have a conversation with more than one person via call on the app. Twitter has only the chat feature in text and audio. Facebook has a separate app designed for chatting on the platform called Facebook Messenger.

Instagram, Linkedin and Whatsapp have more sales success rates compared to other platforms, so I will advise you to start from there when devising a strategy.

While the other aspect of social media marketing focuses on creating content for the public to share on the feeds, DM Marketing focuses on a one-on-one conversation with each customer.

It might appear like a lot of work but it shouldn’t have to once you employ the right methods and strategy to make the work smart and effective.

Why You Might Need DM Marketing

Before we go into discussing the right strategies to employ for effective direct marketing, let’s talk about why it is important.

To dispel a negative impression among customers

Sometimes brands might experience bad publicity due to a negative event and this might affect their relationship with their customers leading to poor sales. A very good way to get on the good side of your audience asides from PR stunts in the form of a public apology might be direct messaging. This will definitely make them feel more included and their feelings respected.

To apologise for bad sales or appreciate a customer

DM Marketing is also necessary when dealing with bad sales or complaints from customers. Sending them a complimentary sorry note and if possible a make-up gift in their DM will go a long way to up your customer service by a notch.

Also, when a customer makes a  purchase or pays for a service, you can create a personalized or automated message to send to them. This will create a foundation for a better relationship to promote more transactions in the future.

To carry out Surveys

Companies and brands carry out surveys from time t time to better understand their audience and subsequently improve their service delivery. Most times, they use survey forms, but this can be quite lengthy or burdensome for some people.

So, a shortcut would be to just ask them via your DM. You can always come up with an incentive if you have such luxury, but once you have built a relationship via DM, it will be easy to ask your customers whatever questions you might have to get quick and direct answers. If you still need to use a form, you can easily share the link with a message via DM.

To promote a product or service

Your updates and announcements of a new product or service don’t always have to be only done via ads or feed posts. You can communicate it directly with your audience. Share new promos, and updates with them without sounding salesy though. The information stays close to them that way.

To reach out to Influencers

You are probably aware of the term influencer marketing if you’re into social media marketing or digital marketing in general. This involves the use of influencers to boost the visibility of your products or services. Now DM marketing makes it pretty easy to reach these influencers on their page. You can simply enter their DMs and make your enquiries or pitch them an offer. You could either get accepted or rejected. No one can be hurt from trying.

To build a closer Relationship

DM marketing is a helpful way of getting closer to your audience. Asides the regular social media posts and engagement, you can initiate a relationship with your followers by creating a DM strategy.

This could be by responding to their queries via DMs, sending them “check-up” or “holiday” messages from time to time, welcoming new followers, and informing them about new products or services. It is important to make sure that your messages are conversational and not always promotional. If you only send promotional cold messages, it might make look spammy and they will end up ignoring future messages.

To reduce advertising costs

A very well initiated DM strategy can save you the cost of running advertising campaigns e.g Facebook ads, Google ads, Instagram ads. This is because DM marketing reaches the audience at a more intimate level as compared to these other campaign strategies. So you can limit running of ads to when necessary and focus on instant messaging to win over customers.

The Right Direct Messaging Strategies to Employ

It is one thing to have a knowledge of DM marketing, it is another to have a an understanding on how best to employ it. If used the wrong way, it can be unproductive.

Set realistic goals and establish Metrics

The first thing you should do is to identify the main reason you want to go into this marketing and set realistic goals and metrics to measure the goals. This wlil help you monitor your progress and provide you with enough data to improve your DM marketing activities. Generally, while the common goal of social media engagement is to boost brand awareness, DM marketing is used to increase customer-client relationship. This means that when recording metrics, focus on those that align with your goals.

Research your target clients

Since your marketing will be data driven, it is only right you do proper research on your target audience to have a better understanding on how to get through to the. To know what they like and what they won’t, to know where to start from and how when to start implementing.

Build a relationship first

Like I mentioned earlier, do not start with by selling your services and products. Build a relationship first. To do this you can start by sending a warm greeting from time to time, before sending a sales pitch. Even when you do send a sales pitch, do not make the content too cold and boring. Entice and lead them into reading your message.

Seriously, how would you feel when you open your LinkedIn or Instagram inbox and see a cold lengthy message from a brand representative talking about their service or product. You might hardly open it or even read it. This is why it is wiser to develop an engaging atmosphere before jumping in with a pitch.

Build a Trusted Social Media Presence First

It would be very unprofessional and weird to start entering people’s DMs about a product when your page is begging for proper management. It is like inviting people into your home without making it worthy of receiving visitors. People need to be certain your brand is authentic and they do that by checking your page and social post activities.

Don’t sell, offer Value

The best content strategy do not focus on advertising but offering value to the audience. Offering Value gives you more authority in your niche and helps you gain trust. This same thought process should be applied in DM marketing. Your messages should not scream “sell” but “value”. The way you craft your words matter so always have this in mind.

Personalize your messages

Cold messages hardly get opened. People like feeling special and like to think you spent extra effort to craft out a message just for them. This is why personalized mails and messages always win. Use the name of your customer and used first person pronouns when communicating with them. Even if it is a bulk mail, you can input their personalized names in each before sending it out.

Keep it short

Sadly, people hav short attention span, so it is best you keep messages short and simple so they won’t have a reason to ignore it. You can save lengthy articles and write-ups for your blog or newsletters. DMs should be kept short.

Aim to Convert your DM to Leads

In as much as you try not to make it obvious that you are selling something, have it at the back of your mind that that is the main goal. You will want your audience to eventually become paying customers right? So once you have established a realtionship, know when to shift the DM to leads properly. This can be through links to anothe page or lead magnets. The trick is to do it smartly and not agressively.

Conclusion

Small and Medium businesses can use DM marketing to advance their marketing on socials if used properly. Even large companies, employ it from time to time. The important thing is just to understanding how it works and know when to apply it.

If you haven’t tried it before, try it now and share with me your feedback. If you have but haven’t been doing it the right way, I hope this article helps you to get a better understanding of how it works.