Direct marketing
model of communicating discounts and other sales offers to pre-selected customers
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. In contrast to direct marketing, advertising is more 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.
Overview
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."
Compared to general marketing, which is not as targeted, direct marketing is targeted to speak directly with the consumer.
History
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.
The public source identifies “Direct marketing” as model of communicating discounts and other sales offers to pre-selected customers. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Direct, marketing and model.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q677073. The Library of Congress control number is sh85038256. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1667.
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This entry incorporates text from “Direct marketing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.