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Concept
Direct marketing
Summary
Direct marketing is a form of communicating an offer, where organizations communicate directly to a pre-selected customer and supply a method for a direct response. Among practitioners, it is also known as direct response marketing. By contrast, advertising is of a mass-message nature.
Response channels include toll-free telephone numbers, reply cards, reply forms to be sent in an envelope, websites and email addresses.
The prevalence of direct marketing and the unwelcome nature of some communications has led to regulations and laws such as the CAN-SPAM Act, requiring that consumers in the United States be allowed to opt-out.
Intended targets are selected from larger populations based on vendor-defined criteria, including average income for a particular ZIP code, purchasing history and presence on other lists. The goal is "to sell directly to consumers" without letting others "join (the) parade."
A 2010 study by the Direct Marketing Association reports that in 2010, marketers—commercial and nonprofit—spent 1.798 trillion in incremental sales. In 2010, direct marketing accounted for 8.3% of the total US gross domestic product. In 2010, there were 1.4 million direct marketing employees in the US. Their collective sales efforts directly supported 8.4 million other jobs, accounting for a total of 9.8 million US jobs.
Mail order
Direct marketing, using catalogues, was practiced in 15th-century Europe. The publisher Aldus Manutius of Venice printed a catalogue of the books he offered for sale. In 1667, the English gardener, William Lucas, published a seed catalogue, which he mailed to his customers to inform them of his prices. Catalogues spread to colonial America, where Benjamin Franklin is believed to have been the first cataloguer in British America. In 1744, he produced a catalogue of scientific and academic books.
Official source
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