Direct marketing

Direct marketing is a form of advertising which allows businesses and nonprofit organizations to communicate directly to customers through a variety of media including cell phone text messaging, email, websites, online adverts, database marketing, fliers, catalog distribution, promotional letters and targeted television, newspaper and magazine advertisements as well as outdoor advertising. Among practitioners, it is also known as direct response.

Direct marketing focuses on the customer, data, and testing. Hence, besides the actual communication, a direct marketing campaign will incorporate actionable segments and use pre- and post-campaign analytics to measure results. Characteristics that distinguish direct marketing from other types of marketing are:

Direct marketing is practiced by businesses of all sizes. A direct advertising campaign aims to deliver a good return on investment by showing how many potential customers responded to a clear call to action. This is in contrast to general advertising, which eschews calls for action in favor of messages that build prospects’ emotional awareness or engagement with a brand.

A 2010 study by the Direct Marketing Association reports that in 2010, marketers—commercial and nonprofit—spent $153.3 billion on direct marketing, which accounted for 54.2% of all ad expenditures in the United States. Measured against total US sales, these advertising expenditures generated approximately $1.798 trillion in incremental sales. In 2010, direct marketing accounted for 8.3% of 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.

Meeting the demands of the consumer revolution and growth in wealth of the middle classes that helped drive the Industrial Revolution in Britain, the 18th century entrepreneur and pottery manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood pioneered many of the marketing strategies used today, including direct marketing.

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