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Direct marketing services are among the most common solutions for getting information to potential customers. Before you commence a direct marketing campaign, though, you may want to look at the pros and cons of this approach. Here are four issues you should consider if you're thinking about taking your marketing efforts directly to the public.

Pro: Specificity About Products and Services

Most marketing opportunities don't give you much of a chance to engage the consumer at length. If you buy a TV ad or an internet banner, you might only have a few seconds of the prospective customer's time to get them interested. That leaves little time to tell them in detail about a product or service.

With direct marketing products, you tend to be able to explain things at length. A classic example of marketing directly to consumers is a new restaurant putting out door hangers with its menu. This allows the business to tell folks at length what food they sell, where the restaurant is located, and what services like delivery or carry-out they offer. They can even offer coupons and scannable codes for cellphones.

Con: Potential Waste

Unless you have a highly targeted customer list or an amazing product that appeals to nearly everybody, there's a decent chance a direct marketing campaign will produce wasted efforts. If you print a ton of brochures for a B2B service and hand them out at a business convention, some people are going to chuck the item in the trash without seriously reading it. For this reason, it's important to limit costs by finding the right company to help you with your campaign.

Mixed: Audience Targeting

A lot of this boils down to how narrowly you want to focus on targeting audience members. Geographic targeting, for example, can easily be done based on ZIP codes. As you narrow in on an audience, though, it becomes tougher and more expensive to develop a customer list that includes demographic data, such as ages, incomes, and interests.

Pro: Noise Reduction

Marketing materials tend to get caught in a wash of noise. People see ads, email solicitations, and promoted social media posts everywhere. It makes it hard for them to focus long enough to care, even if they find the marketer's appeal interesting.

Conversely, a direct marketing product gives the potential customer time to sit down with it once you have their attention. It's also highly shareable so someone who doesn't get the appeal might pass it along to another person who they know is into your type of product or service.