Direct Mail is a form of direct marketing. Direct marketing is a technique used by companies where they send their messages directly to consumers, without the use of intervening media. This involves unsolicited commercial communication with consumers or businesses.

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 email marketing, including spam. Telemarketing, where marketers call selected (or random) telephone numbers to try to sell or plug a product of company, is a third type of direct marketing. A fourth type of direct marketing, broadcast faxing, is now less common than the other forms.

This type of direct marketing or mail allows personalised messages straight to customers and also produces trackable, measurable results regardless of medium. By employing advertising that uses person-to-person communication through the mail rather than mass media, companies do not need to appeal to their whole target market with one message, but can tailor their message to suit a specific group of customers.