What is direct marketing or mass marketing ?

What is direct marketing or mass marketing also differentiate it?

Mass Marketing:
Companies have not always practiced target marketing. In fact, for most of the 1900s, major consumer products companies held fast to mass marketing—mass producing, mass distributing, and mass promoting about the same product in about the same way to all consumers. The traditional argument for mass marketing is that it creates the largest potential market, which leads to the lowest costs, which in turn can help into either lower prices or higher margins.

For example, Bunny Bread supply bread in all parts of the city regardless the economical differentiation of the communities.

Direct Marketing:
Direct marketing is a process in which the middle men are removed and the product is directly sold to the end users or consumers. Direct Marketing is different as it involves the use of direct mail, email and other mediums to help complete a sale or to gain new prospects for a sale.

It is a techniques used by so many companies. In this technique, many techniques of distribution have been used simultaneously. Like many companies may use direct sales to the customer and also delivering goods through a conventional mode of distribution i.e distributors to whole sellers and then to retailers.

Take an example of IBM for years; IBM computers were available from only one supplier, the company’s sales force. But when the market for small, low-cost computers exploded, IBM management realized that its single distribution channel was no longer sufficient. In the late 1970s, it started expanding into new channels, among them dealers, value-added resellers, catalog operations, direct mail, and telemarketing. IBM had built and maintained its vaunted 5,000-person sales force for 70 years. In less than 10 years, it nearly doubled that number and added 18 new channels to communicate with customers.