What is direct marketing? Give some examples.

Contacting and influencing carefully chosen prospects with means such as telemarketing and direct mail advertising. The most common forms of direct marketing are telephone sales, solicited or unsolicited emails, and mailed catalogs, leaflets, brochures and coupons.

Direct marketing is a type of marketing that most companies prefer because they can measure the response of their customers through the “response rate”. Companies also can insure that their msg is sent the way they want because there are no intermediaries.  Types of direct marketing are e-mail, Online Tools, Mobile, Telemarketing, voicemail, Broadcast Faxing, Couponing,  Direct Mail,  Insert Media, Out-of-Home, Direct Response Magazines and Newspapers and Direct Selling.. Those are the most common ones  

In direct marketing, there is a direct interaction of the customers with the seller without any intermediaries. Here, the role of the intermediaries is nil. The medium used is more direct using telephone, mail, internet where the seller can directly reach out to the consumer. Examples of such marketing include telemarketing, email, voicemail marketing, door-to-door selling etc. This kind of marketing is more time saving as the problem of distance which may otherwise exist between the buyer and seller is eliminated and is also cost effective as it minimizes commuting costs.