The Impacts of Direct Marketing Strategies on Consumers’ Purchasing Decision in Cosmetic Sector in Turkey

Didem Yılmaz * and Feyza Bhatti **
Graduate Student, Girne American University*,
Department of Economics, Girne American University**

Abstract: Nowadays, consumers could be reached directly, through the rapid development of direct marketing. In order to affect consumers' purchasing decisions, direct marketing method uses specific advertisement tools and distribution channels to establish direct and mutual communication. Alongside the traditional channels, direct marketers have taken advantage of communication tools such as computer, fax, television, smartphones, e-mail and Internet. Thereby direct marketers generally use various direct marketing strategies such as online marketing, face-to-face selling, direct mail marketing, catalog marketing, telemarketing etc. Focusing on three of these direct marketing strategies, namely Social Networking Websites (SNS), Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) and Word of Mouth Marketing (WOM), this research aims at analysing the impacts of SNS, CRM and WOM on consumer's purchasing decisions for Avon cosmetic products in Istanbul, Turkey. The paper utilizes a quantitative survey of 1,421 cosmetics customers in Istanbul to investigate the conceptual relationship between three direct marketing strategies and purchasing decision through nine hypotheses. Data was analysed through T-tests, One-Way Anova and Binary Logistic Regression. Based on the findings of the research, a significant and positive relationship between variables was confirmed. This research provides a contribution to direct marketing literature, since no similar studies have been conducted in cosmetics sector in Turkey.

Keywords: Direct marketing, WOM, SNS, CRM and cosmetic sector.