Direct marketing is a collection of techniques that enables organisations to market goods and services directly to customers (business-to-customers or B2C). It is a pro-active approach to marketing that takes the product and/or service to potential customers rather than waiting for them to come to a store or other point of access. It is a form of ‘non-shop’ shopping and is sometimes referred to as ‘precision marketing’ or ‘one-to-one’ marketing. Rather than the marketing firm sending out a general communication or sales message to a large group of potential customers, even if these constitute a well-defined market segment, direct marketing tends to target specific individuals or households. In a business-to-business (B2B) context this would be an individual or a specific organisation or firm. Direct marketing is not just concerned with marketing communications. It is also concerned with distribution. In using direct marketing, the firm is making a choice to cut out the use of marketing intermediaries and sell the product or service direct to customers. This has implications for both channels of distribution and logistical decisions.
Direct marketing comes in a variety of forms. It is on
Database marketing aims to focus and target and take guessing out of marketing programmes. Perfect accuracy is never possible, but it allows for significant improvements in accuracy and efficiency if used properly. Some companies engage in “hit-or-miss” marketing. This means management often makes decisions based on intuition or instinct rather than on hard facts based on scientific evidence, so instead for predicting target audiences on hard facts they make best guesses about whom their target audience is and what they want. This can be expensive in terms of wasted direct mail shots and other forms of communication.
The American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) define it as:
3. Assist members to understand consumer and business customer needs and concerns regarding direct/interactive marketing and confirm that member’s respect and act on those needs and concerns
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