Direct Marketing

The second characteristic of Direct marketing is that it is focused on driving purchases that can be attributed to a specific "call-to-action." This aspect of direct marketing involves an emphasis on track able, measurable results regardless of medium.

The most common form of direct marketing is direct mail, where the marketers use a reduced "bulk mail" postal rate to send paper mail to all postal customers in an area or all customers whose addresses have been taken from a list. The second most common form of direct marketing is telemarketing, where marketers call selected telephone numbers.

Email Direct marketing, including spam may have passed telemarketing in frequency at this point, and it is a third type of direct marketing. A fourth type of direct marketing, broadcast faxing, is now less common than the other forms. This is partly due to laws in the United States and elsewhere which make it illegal. A related form of Direct marketing is infomercials. They are typically called "direct response" marketing rather than direct marketing because they try to achieve a direct response via television presentations.

Direct marketers also use media such as door hangers, package inserts, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, email, internet banner ads, pay-per-click ads, billboards, transit ads, etc. And according to Ad Age, "In 2005, U.S. agencies generated more revenue from marketing services than from traditional advertising and media."

If the ad in the medium asks the prospect to take a specific action--call a free phone number, visit a website, return a response card, place an order, visit a PURL, complete a survey, etc.--then the effort is considered to be direct marketing. Direct response or direct-response advertising are both synonymous terms for direct marketing.

The term "direct marketing" is believed to have been first used in 1961 in a speech by Lester Wunderman, who pioneered direct marketing techniques with brands such as American Express and Columbia Records. Although Wunderman may have been the first to use the term "direct marketing", the practice of "mail order selling" (direct marketing via mail) essentially began in the U.S. upon invention of the typewriter in 1867.

The first mail-order catalog was produced by Aaron Montgomery Ward in 1872. The Direct Mail Advertising Association, predecessor of the present-day Direct Marketing Association, was first established in 1917. Third class bulk mail postage rates were established in 1928.

Direct marketing's history in Europe can be traced to the 15th century. Upon Gutenberg's invention of moveable type, the first trade catalogs from printer-publishers appeared sometime around 1450.

Recently, political campaigns have begun to appropriate the methods of direct marketers (or to employ direct marketing firms) to raise money and foster activism.

Direct marketing is attractive to many marketers, because in many cases its effectiveness can be measured directly. For example, if a marketer sends out one million solicitations by mail, and ten thousand customers can be tracked as having responded to the promotion, the marketer can say with some confidence that the campaign led directly to the responses.

By contrast, measurement of other media must often be indirect, since there is no direct response from a consumer. Measurement of results, a fundamental element in successful direct marketing, is explored in greater detail elsewhere in this article. Yet since the start of the Internet-age the challenges of Chief Marketing Executives (CMOs) are tracking direct marketing responses and measuring results.