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In 2020, a mobile application (app) was developed to connect small food retailers with local pro­ducers, recognizing the underutilization of direct-to-retail sales channels. Before piloting the app, formative research was conducted in Charles County, Maryland, to gain an understanding of existing direct-to-retail sales channels for locally grown produce. Seven stores were surveyed to explore current local produce stocking, and four farmers participated in in-depth interviews to pro­vide insights into their experiences with direct-to-retail marketing channels. The results indicate a limited stocking of local produce in the small food stores, some of which was self-procured to obtain adequate quantities. Farmers expressed a passion for contributing to food security in their commu­nity and a willingness to collaborate with store owners to strengthen their direct sales; however, they cited barriers such as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, competition with large distributors, and logistical challenges. Considering these existing barriers and facilitators, small food stores may still possess a unique potential to establish direct sale relationships with local farms. Such relationships could be effectively facilitated through the implementation of a digital strategy.

In recent years, the number of agricultural enterprises engaged in various forms of direct marketing has increased, both internationally and in Germany. To date, however, little is known about the farmers’ motives for selling their products directly to consumers. This knowledge gap seems particularly striking in light of the sociopolitical objective of fostering this mode of marketing and distribution. Given the hegemonic conceptualization of the farmer as a rational choice entrepreneur, the reasons for this could be purely economic, or a response to a seemingly growing demand for local produce. Nonetheless, the little research that exists on farmers’ motivations also points in other directions and emphasizes the importance of relationality and socioecological embeddedness, which are central characteristics of care. This article thus explores how logics of care provide a starting point for farmers’ motivation to direct marketing. Through the analysis of nine qualitative interviews with farmers in Brandenburg, Germany, who sell some or all of their products directly, it illustrates how they consider themselves within a structure of multifaceted responsibilities. The results further indicate that direct marketing seems to be a logical consequence of these responsibilities. By providing a more nuanced picture, the direct selling of produce can be seen as both a strategy for value creation and a means of appreciation and a set of practices of care toward the complex web of human and non-human beings contributing to agricultural production.

The purpose of this publication is to look at the other side of the profit equation to explore opportunities for Florida’s small and medium-sized farmers to find ways to improve revenues. We can do this by identifying markets where farmers have some measure of control over how much to charge for their food products. Economists describe markets in which businesses may set their own prices as “imperfectly competitive.” The authors aim to answer these common questions: Why are markets considered imperfect? What does this mean to farmers and buyers? What are the added costs and benefits to farmers who decide to sell into imperfect markets?

Direct marketing and personal selling tools are the tools most used by medical representatives in their daily work. The aim of the study is therefore to assess the direct marketing and personal selling tools used by medical representatives and to provide recommendations for their effective use. The research includes results from a questionnaire survey of healthcare professionals and semi-structured interviews with medical representatives. Based on the findings, the article provides insights into what changes might be useful in the use of direct marketing and personal selling tools.

Customer profiling in e-commerce is a powerful tool that enables organizations to create personalized offers through direct marketing. One crucial objective of customer profiling is to predict whether a website visitor will make a purchase, thereby generating revenue. Machine learning models are the most accurate means to achieve this objective. However, the opaque nature of these models may deter companies from adopting them. Instead, they may prefer simpler models that allow for a clear understanding of the customer attributes that contribute to a purchase. In this study, we show that companies need not compromise on prediction accuracy to understand their online customers. By leveraging website data from a multinational communications service provider, we establish that the most pertinent customer attributes can be readily extracted from a black box model. Specifically, we show that the features that measure customer activity within the e-commerce platform are the most reliable predictors of conversions. Moreover, we uncover significant nonlinear relationships between customer features and the likelihood of conversion.

The technical development occurring in various areas of life and related to digital development and its life applications has created a pattern of employment creativity for these digital applications in the various design fields, including the areas of marketing and advertising. Interactive applications that lead to creating different experiences that are enjoyable and attractive to the audience in direct marketing operations, and there are many interactive applications that can be employed in marketing operations in general and direct marketing in particular. For the recipient, and equipped with a large number of digital, pneumatic and mechanical devices to achieve interaction, and it is controlled from a host computer or any of the attached digital devices such as an iPad or tablet. The application on interactive urban maquettes in real estate marketing in Egypt, and the research problem stems from the need to study interactive advertising marketing based on high-efficiency digital technology to achieve a rich and attractive communication for the recipient, as well as the lack of contemporary advertising designer and marketing workers in general and direct marketing in particular to employ interactive technological techniques and the possibility of integrating these Designs with modern marketing thought, and the research aims to shed light on interactive design and its role in direct marketing processes with application to interactive urban marketing. The research found that the employment of interactive urban maquettes as a modern creative marketing method that allows good presentation of urban models and good marketing at the local and international levels, as well as displaying them interactively within the limits of the display space to gain a competitive advantage.

The way in which virtual assistants can influence the marketing paradigm through various uses within the interactive media, present on the web, within eCommerce websites, but also through indirect action, starting from social media, is a very complex and interesting process, which is worth studying. From the perspective of virtual assistants, all consumer buying behavior models are a simplification of reality, since there can be many other sub-models which can be derived from the main ones. The objective pursued within this research has been the presentation of the impact of the use of intelligent virtual assistants on the direct marketing activity of the companies, and the correlation with consumer behavior, especially in terms of the different decision levels and the way in which it is being supported.

Objective: Novel nicotine and tobacco products, including heated tobacco products (HTPs) like IQOS, are growing in global popularity. IQOS was the first HTP authorized for sale by the US Food and Drug Administration, entering the US market in 2019 and being removed in 2021 due to patent-related legal challenges, with the possibility of returning in 2024. Direct marketing is one method tobacco companies use to reach consumers of these products. The purpose of this study was to investigate the content of US IQOS direct mail and email marketing. Methods: Direct marketing items were collected between September 2019 and July 2021 by seven team members in the first US IQOS test market, Atlanta, Georgia. Results: Overall, 101 marketing items were collected, 59 of which were unique. Among the unique items that showed images of persons (“models”), 70 % showed models appearing to be from racial/ethnic minoritized groups, 86.8 % showed at least one female-presenting model, and 37.5 % showed models appearing to be young adults (18–29 years). Items often had an embedded link/URL (91.5 %) and mentioned topics such as online services (54.2 %; for example, online ordering and tutorials), user experience (49.2 %), social media (44.1 %), and purchasing locations (37.3 %). When examined for their main purpose, items focused on subjects such as store experience (37.7 %), product introduction (18.6 %), and product use (15.3 %). Conclusions: Our study highlights the importance of better understanding how novel tobacco products are marketed, which can inform policymakers’ regulatory efforts and product authorization decisions.

Community-supported agriculture (CSA) has the potential to reduce food loss and waste (FLW) due to a direct connection between consumers and producers, lower standards regarding product aesthetics and consumer-related values. Accordingly, CSA could compensate for possible yield gaps compared to conventional agriculture. Here, FLW and yields were assessed for one year in four CSA initiatives in the area of Leipzig, Germany, and compared to reference data. The results show that FLW during production, distribution and consumption were on average 22–70% lower compared to reference data. On average, due to lower FLW, the CSA initiatives could compensate for yield gaps of 32%, which reflects yield gaps typically observed between organic and conventional agriculture. Actual yield gaps in CSA might be lower, as agroecological approaches to increase productivity are widely adopted. The co-evaluation of the results with CSA gardeners showed that FLW could be further reduced in all stages. Reducing FLW was mentioned as an important sustainability goal of the investigated CSA initiatives, yet they also indicated a focus on biodiversity, education, food quality or the reduction of fossil fuels. This pilot study indicates that CSA can contribute to the transition towards sustainable and resilient food systems.

Die ergriffenen Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung der COVID-19-Pandemie sowie Einstellungs- und Verhaltensänderungen der Konsumenten haben sich global auf Lebensmittelwertschöpfungsketten ausgewirkt. Um die Auswirkungen von COVID-19 auf die österreichische Landwirtschaft zu untersuchen, wurden im Frühjahr 2021 Interviews mit 34 Landwirt:innen geführt. Basierend auf den Ergebnissen einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse wird deutlich, dass die vielfältigen und heterogenen Auswirkungen von COVID-19 auf landwirtschaftliche Betriebe sowohl Chancen als auch Herausforderungen verursachen. Zu den negativen Auswirkungen zählen Absatzschwierigkeiten durch die Schließung von Gastronomie und Märkten, das Verbot nichtlandwirtschaftlicher Aktivitäten, die gestörte Verfügbarkeit von Arbeitskräften und Betriebsmitteln sowie Belastungen der Landwirt:innen. Die Mitigation negativer Auswirkungen durch staatliche Hilfen und Interessenvertretung zeigte eine begrenzte Wirksamkeit. Dennoch wurde die Funktionsfähigkeit der landwirtschaftlichen Produktion aufgrund geringfügiger direkter Auswirkungen und adäquater Anpassungen aufrechterhalten. Positive Auswirkungen resultieren aus der gestiegenen Nachfrage in der Direktvermarktung und im Lebensmitteleinzelhandel, der verbesserten Wahrnehmung der Landwirtschaft in der Gesellschaft und Vorteilen im Privatleben der Landwirt:innen. Langfristige Veränderungen der landwirtschaftlichen Betriebe werden vor allem durch Digitalisierung, Investitionen und Anpassungen der Vermarktung ausgelöst.

Customer response models have gained popularity due to their ability to significantly improve the likelihood of targeting the customers most likely to buy a product or a service. These models are built using databases of previous customers’ buying decisions. However, a smaller number of customers in these databases often bought the product or service than those who did not do so, resulting in unbalanced datasets. This problem is especially significant for online marketing campaigns when the class imbalance emerges due to many website sessions. Unbalanced datasets pose a specific challenge in data-mining modelling due to the inability of most of the algorithms to capture the characteristics of the classes that are unrepresented in the dataset. This paper proposes an approach based on a combination of random undersampling and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification applied to the unbalanced dataset to create a Balanced SVM (B-SVM) data pre-processor resulting in a dataset that is analysed with several classifiers. The experiments indicate that using the B-SVM strategy combined with classification methods increases the base models’ predictive performance, indicating that the B-SVM approach efficiently pre-processes the data, correcting noise and class imbalance. Hence, companies may use the B-SVM approach to more efficiently select customers more likely to respond to a campaign.

During the past two decades the use of the telephone had been dramatically increased, while its possession and using are presented as almost as an imperative at the moment. Business entities are guided by the stated fact when creating communication strategies, so it is mostly treated as an inevitable instrument of direct marketing communication with the target audience. Therefore, the subject of the paper is direct marketing communication, with special reference to telemarketing. Although it has a wide range of strengths and advantages, a common objection to telemarketing is an overly aggressive approach which can decrease the level of customer satisfaction. Since the costumers are the center of marketing efforts, an aim of the research paper was to identify their attitudes about marketing campaigns via phone call and text message. The empirical research was conducted on the territory of the Republic of Serbia on a sample of 100 respondents. The analysis had been performed using Pearson's correlation test, after which the hypothesis H0 - "Interactive communication via telephone is perceived by consumers as aggressive" was confirmed. The results of the research indicated that consumer interest will decrease proportionally as the aggressiveness of direct interactive marketing grows in their consciousness.

Marketing strategies play a significant role in determining farm income. Although direct marketing has been proposed as an innovative way to improve producers’ economic welfare, little is known about producers’ adoption of direct marketing among aquaculture farms. This study examines the adoption of wholesaler markets, individual wholesalers or shippers, and direct marketing among aquaculture farms. In addition, we quantify the effects of the use of different marketing channels on fishery revenues, profits, and production inputs. A sample of 25,180 aquaculture family farms in Taiwan was drawn from the fishery census survey. After estimating the simultaneous equation system model, we find that the use of multiple marketing channels generates the highest fishery revenues, which highlights the importance of marketing channel diversity on selling fishery products. Moreover, we find a positive effect of direct marketing on fishery revenues and profits. We also find that the use of direct marketing can reduce the use of groundwater in aquaculture production. Since the decrease in groundwater use can mitigate the severity of land subsidence, this paper provides evidence that direct marketing can possibly provide a win-win strategy to improve fishery producers’ revenues and environmental quality.

Modern communication technology has witnessed, during the last twenty years, an amazing development and an unparalleled explosion, as it leads us towards a new communication style that accommodates all modes of communication, which is interactive communication based on direct interaction between senders and audience, and it gives vitality to the brand where the audience interacts the product directly. It also helps the advertising campaign succeed on its own, which is shown alongside aspects of interaction, which is called Activation on the ground.The advertising means that the audience is exposed to are affected by what is new in our daily life, which leads to the development of ways to interact with the consumer. The designer has benefited from the elements of the surrounding environment in producing advertising methods that give vitality to the brand and its operations in direct marketing.The advertising means to which the recipient is exposed are affected by everything new in our daily life, which led to the development or diversity of ways to interact with the consumer, the designer has benefited from the elements and elements of the surrounding environment in producing advertising methods and methods that give vitality to the brand and its uses in direct marketing, using Modern technologies and technological processes. Also, different direct interactive marketing methods help in delivering the advertising message in many ways and means and in different places in order to attract the attention of the recipient and reach him with the advertising message in a clear way, which makes the recipient go through stages of interaction with the advertisement which is attracting attention and creating the mind and providing information, awareness and assimilation Then persuasion or non-persuasion in the light of previous experience, which is called the interaction stages, and this is done through direct marketing in a way that gives the fridge vital through building direct marketing advertising events. Marketing methods are different channels that are transmitted. Through the advertising message from the advertiser to the recipient and the emergence of many marketing methods, including On-Ground activations, guerilla marketing, ambient marketing, using the elements surrounding the recipient in all places in which he is from public places, marketing places, practical and educational places and using them in an innovative and unconventional way to deliver the advertising message to the recipient With the use of modern technologies in advertising and marketing.

Target marketing is a key strategy used to increase the revenue. Among many methods that identify prospective customers, the recency, frequency, monetary value (RFM) model is considered the most accurate. However, no RFM study has focused on prospects for new product launches. This study addresses this gap by using website access data to identify prospects for new products, thereby extending RFM models to include website-specific weights. An RF model, built using frequency and recency information from website access data of customers, and an RwF model, built by adding website weights to frequency of access, were developed. A TextRank algorithm was used to analyze weights for each website based on the access frequency, thus defining the weights in the RwF model. South Korean mobile users’ website access data between May 1 and July 31, 2020 were used to validate the models. Through a significant lift curve, the results indicate that the models are highly effective in prioritizing customers for target marketing of new products. In particular, the RwF model, reflecting website-specific weights, showed a customer response rate of more than 30% among the top 10% customers. The findings extend the RFM literature beyond purchase history and enable practitioners to find target customers without a purchase history.

The purpose of the research was to reveal the opinions and satisfaction levels of farmers about the market and also to offer solutions to problems. The research data were obtained through a survey from 68 local farmers selling agricultural products in the farmers market established on Fridays in the town of Gerze, Sinop province in the Blacksea Region of Turkey. The results of the research showed that most of the farmers (91.2%) use the income earned from the market to provide a living for the family. 66.2% of the farmers consume products that are not sold in the market in their own homes. The main opinions of the farmers about the market were the difficulty of marketing in winter months (92.7%), exhausting marketing operations (91.2%), and competition with big sellers from outside the district due to low product range (85.3%). According to the farmers, the important problems were the open boundary of the marketplace (30.9%), the noisy market condition (22.1%), and the lack of parking facilities in the farmers' market (19.1%). Farmers' markets, one of the direct marketing channels, are an important source of income for farmers and offer buyers the opportunity to buy products fresh and at affordable prices. For this reason, it is important to improve the physical infrastructure of the farmers' markets and to make them more modern in terms of ensuring buyer and seller satisfaction.

The article analyses the experience of the Russian distribution company of the market of aesthetic medicine in implementing the communication strategy of a new educational product in a turbulent marketing environment. The paper formulates the principles of establishing profitable communication with core audiences, substantiates the choice of marketing communications instruments, as well as the techniques for their combination and the development of advertising material used for achieving synergistic effect from marketing and advertising activities. The authors notice a high value of Integrated marketing communications in the projects of launching new products to the market. The results of the study can be used by marketing specialists to form an effective communication system in small and medium-sized businesses that provides a commercial enterprise with a highly profitable result from advertising campaigns with limited deadlines and budgets.

Farmers are invited to tell stories about their farms, especially about their farm’s origin and history. However, some farm stories go untold, are unin­vited, or become obscured, including stories of farm closures. With this case study, we invite jour­nalists and academics to provide further opportuni­ties for farmers to tell their own closure stories. Written by the farmer and her CSA member and friend, who researches farmer communication, this case study calls on farmers to tell their farm-closure stories in the complicated and robust ways such stories deserve. We draw on ­academic and public scholarship about farm closures and farmers’ dis­closures to feature how one farmer decided to end her farm and farming career. We chronicle her decision-making process and her strategies to com­municate the closure of her farm, as well as analyze themes from how audiences reacted to her news. We also offer a range of reasons for inviting such telling of complex closure stories.

Abstract Background Direct marketing—the delivery of messages via mail, the Internet, and similar routes directly to consumers—is used extensively by healthcare organizations to attract and inform current and prospective patients of health and medical offerings and opportunities. Examples of direct marketing include direct-mail marketing, telemarketing, and Internet marketing, with routes being selected on the basis of their ability to reach desired audiences. The various avenues offered by direct marketing afford options to address most any sought group. Discussion Direct marketing is one of the most recognized forms of marketing communication, thanks in large part to its widespread use and direct engagement of consumers. While some applications clearly have the potential to irritate consumers (e.g., junk mail in post boxes, spam in email inboxes), direct marketing can be deployed in manners respectful of recipients and, in such cases, it can prove to be a helpful communications asset. To aid others in understanding this particular conveyance method, this article presents an overview of direct marketing and shares deployment insights and experiences from Willis-Knighton Health System. Conclusions Direct marketing provides a useful communications pathway, permitting health and medical institutions to educate and enlighten desired audiences. Given instances of overuse and misuse by organizations, however, great care must be taken to design and deploy direct marketing initiatives inoffensively. If well designed and respectfully implemented, direct marketing affords significant communications utility, earning a valued place in the marketing communications arsenals of healthcare establishments.

Marketing in tourism is a systematic adjustment of tourism company policy and political policy at the local, regional, national and international levels in order to meet the needs of tourists and make a profit. The purpose of the paper is to explain how direct marketing, especially as part of a marketing mix, can help facilitate the exchange process in the international and domestic tourism markets. The aim of studying marketing in tourism is to make this concept available in this activity in theoretical, methodological and application terms. Marketing in the tourism industry is in a phase of maturity and is becoming sophisticated, which leads to the fact that the entire industry increasingly accepts the basic principles of marketing: The concept of marketing; Marketing orientation; Meeting the wishes and needs of consumers; Market segmentation; Value ; Product life cycle and Marketing mix (the principle on which the essence of the work is based). Direct marketing activities are based on databases and interactive communication media. Databases enable the selection of the target market (customer), which is acted upon by selecting the appropriate advertising/sales medium. The most famous media of direct marketing are certainly catalogs, direct mail and telephone (telemarketing), while in practice many others are used such as: television, radio, Internet, mobile phones, print, inserts.

Relevance of research topic. The need of gathering of information and its analysis plays a crucial role when it is question about satisfying customer better than competitors. Planning and coordinating the company’s activities according to customer’s requirements in order to achieve long-term success are important themes commented and present in the article. Analysis of recent research and publications. The existing literature in the field of the direct marketing was analyzed on issues of Direct Marketing definition, communicating on individual level, a long-term relationship approach, keeping and analyzing the information related to the customer’s reaction. Setting the task, the purpose of the study.Presenting a newly developed methodology of outlining direct marketing features of companies applying this approach, this article aims to offer a tool to distinguish these companies when evaluating their level of market orientation. Method or methodology for conducting research.The data has been collected by an Internet online survey. The market orientation of the companies is measured by the scale MARKOR. Presentation of the main material (results of work). This article represents one of the stages of a study taken in Bulgaria in 2018 aiming to evaluate the level of market orientation of companies applying direct marketing approach related to the interaction between the customer and the company, and aimed to collection, processing, presence, maintaining and storage of actual information. The respondents are companies operating on the Bulgarian market which actively apply direct marketing approach. The process of differentiating the companies passes through two consecutive and interrelated phases. The first phase aims to outline the direct marketing activities by checking if several of them are present and applied by the company. The second phase consists of analyzing the specifics of each activity. The set of questions to the respondents within the both phases is substantiated in the study according to the direct marketing approach. Conclusions according to the article. In Bulgarian companies the direct marketing and its application is guided by the principles of maintaining the information actual for customers; monitoring, recording and analyzing the customer’s response; developing different proposals for different clients based on their value for the company.

This paper is the result of researching activities between faculties of the University of Novi Sad and Belgrade on social networks, as well as the impact of their activity on popularity among high school graduates. This researching presents the importance of popularizing science, using direct marketing tools, and creating competitive advantages among higher education institutions.

Listeria monocytogenes can cause severe foodborne infections in humans and invasive diseases in different animal species, especially in small ruminants. Infection of sheep and goats can occur via contaminated feed or through the teat canal. Both infection pathways result in direct (e.g., raw milk from an infected udder or fresh cheese produced from such milk) or indirect exposure of consumers. The majority of dairy farmers produces a high-risk product, namely fresh cheese made from raw ewe’s and goat’s milk. This, and the fact that L. monocytogenes has an extraordinary viability, poses a significant challenge to on-farm dairies. Yet, surprisingly, almost no scientific studies have been conducted dealing with the hygiene and food safety aspects of directly marketed dairy products. L. monocytogenes prevalence studies on small ruminant on-farm dairies are especially limited. Therefore, it was our aim to focus on three main transmission scenarios of this important major foodborne pathogen: (i) the impact of caprine and ovine listerial mastitis; (ii) the significance of clinical listeriosis and outbreak scenarios; and (iii) the impact of farm management and feeding practices.

U law sets out some requirements in respect of data processing for direct marketing purposes. These requirements are included in particular in Regulation 2016/6791 and Directive 2002/58/EC2. The use of electronic communications means for direct marketing purposes has an impact on both the entrepreneurs and their clients’ rights, therefore, accurate interpretation of EU law in this respect and an appropriate implementation of EU law into national law in Member States as well as its appropriate application in practice, are essential. This article provides an analysis of the conformity of Polish law with EU law in respect of the use of electronic means of communication for the direct marketing of products or services similar to products or services previously sold or provided by the same entity. There are a lot of doubts in this regard. The correct evaluation of Polish law with the use of pro-EU rules interpretation is crucial, because Polish law provides severe sanctions for the infringement of provisions concerning the use of electronic means of communications for direct marketing purposes.

Japan has one of the largest poultry industries in the world. To meet the high demands for eggs, many types of mass production methods have been developed. In contrast, a number of high-quality brands of eggs have been launched. Among them, the Oenosato Natural Farm (managed by Hiyoko Company) located in Yazu Town, Tottori Prefecture is currently the most successful company in Japan; supplying a high volume of highly priced, high-quality eggs, named Tenbiran. It should be noted that this firm is successful not only in selling eggs, but also in providing various foods made from eggs, as well as restraint services and agricultural experience tours—although Yazu Town is located far from Tokyo and other big markets. Why is the firm successful? To answer the question, this paper analyzes the firm’s business model.

While local food production plays an increasingly prominent role in U.S. agriculture, there is growing concern about oversaturation. Using a national dataset, we identify locational attributes that are conducive to the establishment of direct-marketing operations and assess competitive behavior. Our model links firm-entry decisions to market size using reduced-form profit functions, which are characterized by the cost of agricultural land and demand variables. We find significant heterogeneity in the required population to support direct-marketing entrants and show that markets become perfectly competitive upon entry of the third direct-marketing establishment, with heterogeneous market potential for new entrants.

Abstract The purpose of this study was to analyze the factors affecting integrated marketing communication and provide solutions for improving the customer experience in Chabahar coastal tourism industry. This research is applied in terms of its purpose and is a survey research in terms of its implementation. The statistical population of the study includes all tourists who have traveled to Chabahar during November 2017 to September 2018. The number of samples selected by random cluster sampling method was 385 for tourists. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed in which 385 questionnaires were returned. In order to collect data, a questionnaire was used. For this purpose, two researcher-made questionnaires of integrated marketing communication and customer experience were used. Statistical analysis (regression and Friedman test) was used to analyze the data. According to the findings of this study, the independent variable of integrated marketing communications has a positive and significant effect on the dependent variable of improving customer experience. In the order of the components of direct sales and marketing, there is a positive and significant impact on the improvement of customer experience. Considering the positive impact of the double sale of direct sales and marketing, the need to pay more attention to them is a must. Introduction Chabahar is in the free zones this will lead to foreign investment attraction, export promotion, increased revenues from foreign investment, and the creation of suitable employment opportunities for the labor force and attracting tourists to the region. The necessity of such a research can be arranged in a way that the development of organizational units such as market development, public relations and etc. in the Chabahar coastal area for ​​tourism problems such as inconsistency between them, conflicting and conflicting goals, as well as the absence of harmony in the message It has attracted customers and stakeholders. The huge volume of TV advertising, the heavy budget of the Public Relations Unit and their various promotional programs has become a serious issue for top executives in the region, with the effectiveness of the costs being spent only through an integrated approach. Case study The overall aim of this study is to examine the factors affecting integrated marketing communication and provide solutions for improving customer experience. With the passage from traditional economics and the intensification of competition in new dimensions, the customer has become the core of all the activities of organizations, so that from a competitive perspective, the survival of organizations depends on identifying and attracting new customers and maintaining the available Customers. Studies show that tourism, along with advanced industries, has a good future. Tourism is the main industry in many countries and plays a major role in the development of the global economy. As the importance of service modalities in advanced economies has increased, special issues in service marketing have attracted increasing attention. Provision of appropriate services to customers is one of the most important factors in creating a distinction between tourism industries in a competitive environment. Materials and methods The present study is applied research because its purpose is to develop knowledge. And descriptive research based on survey type. The instrument used in this research is a researcher-made questionnaire, whose validity was confirmed by the experts. Reliability of the questionnaire was obtained using Cronbach's alpha. Data were analyzed by SPSS software. The statistical population of this study includes all tourists who travel to the coastal area of ​​Chabahar and are unlimited. A sample of 385 people was selected using Morgan table. They were selected using randomized cluster sampling. To each of the elements of the community to select the equal chance to choose. Discussion and Results Indicators of central tendency and dispersion tendencies of direct sales and marketing are respectively 3.84 and 3.79 respectively. The first subset of the research showed that promotion of sales has a positive and significant effect on improving customer experience. The second sub hypothesis shows that direct marketing has a positive and significant impact on improving customer experience. According to two sub-hypotheses, the main hypothesis was proved; the results showed that integrated marketing communications have a positive and significant effect on improving customer experience. Conclusions In line with the objectives of this research, a major hypothesis and two sub-hypotheses were introduced. Which was confirmed after analyzing the data and the results of the regression test. The research findings showed that sales promotion was effect in improving customer experience. Therefore, it is suggested that managers, decision makers and planners should hold coastal competitions along with the awarding of seasonal and concessional awards (cash and non-cash) to enhance and improve the customer experience, in seasons where the climate of the Chabahar coastal tourism zone is more suitable. The findings of the research indicate that direct marketing has a direct impact on improving customer experience. And it is recommended to create national markets, handicrafts centers and create booths on the coast In order to preserve and revitalize traditional arts and crafts, including the special needlework for women of the Baloch artist, to improve this goal.

The article defines the essence and features of the system of marketing communications (SMC) of the subjects of public administration. It is proposed to introduce this concept as a complex of interpersonal dialogue communications in small groups, public, organizational and mass communications, which is an element of the system of public administration and provides communication of subjects of management with their target audiences. The author justifies the classification of marketing communications in public administration. Among the main classification criteria of distribution are the following: type of communication subjects, communication goals and types of media marketing communications. The basic principles of formation of information flows in the system of public administration are determined. The main of them recognized: openness of state information; guarantee of the right to receive information; openness and accessibility of information, freedom of information exchange; authenticity and completeness of information; guarantee of freedom of expression and beliefs; the lawfulness of receiving, using, storing, distributing and protecting information, etc. The article identifies the most important reasons for the ineffective information and communicative policy of government departments. Among them: organizational; historical; resource and personnel-professional. The author substantiates the directions of improvement of the system of marketing communications of the subjects of state administration and raising the level of its efficiency. It is determined that for today, public relations, direct marketing, sales promotion and public advertising should be considered among the main means of SMC. Practice shows that at present the most effective element of SMC of public administration is public relations. First of all, this is explained by the fact that they contribute to the formation and development of well-developed and effective mechanisms of social feedback and their priorities.

Objective There is a general tendency toward direct marketing these days. Therefore, instead of designing advertisement and marketing strategies for all the customers in the market, it is recommended to classify the customers based on clustering techniques and then design specific strategies accordingly. This will reduce marketing and advertisement expenses, increase sale department efficiently, build closer and quicker relationships with different customers and etc. There are a variety of clustering methods. Provided that clustering means classifying customers in different groups with maximum similarities within the groups and maximum difference among the groups, it may not be appropriate to apply such a rule in clustering customers (people) due to their nature. Hence, fuzzy clustering technique seems more appropriate for customers because there are no absolute borders considered among different groups just as the market suggests. This study, then, aims to emphasize on this concept in order to apply fuzzy clustering on market. Methodology This practical research is descriptive-exploratory in nature of data collection. The statistical population includes all the customers of a mobile company, but due to availability issues only a part of their customers would be involved in the present study. A questionnaire including 6 questions was distributed among those customers and only 760 were correctly responded. Finally, EXCEL and S-PLUS were used to analyze the data. Findings The data in this study include three different parts of information. The first part includes some indexes selected for analysis of the clustering. Second part concerns with the customers service usage such as distant phone calls, free calls and wireless services. The third part refers to other mobile services provided for each customer. This part is presented in a binary fashion deciding whether a customer has received a specific service or not. Such services include activating more than one mobile line at the moment, using voicemail, paging, internet and other services. This algorithm was used to conduct fuzzy clustering in the present study. Following applying fuzzy clustering, only 2 clusters were judged appropriate for such data. The first cluster includes customers with lower income, job stability and lower loyalty to the mobile company, while the second cluster includes customers with higher income, higher job stability and more loyalty to the mobile company. The customers in the first cluster used services like free calls, wireless networks and pay phones. On the other hand, the customer in the second cluster mainly used services like distant calls and rarely used wireless services. In general, we can claim that paging services were the highest requested and then there are voicemail services, internet, and e-pay services respectively. The two clusters reported to have a similar tendency in using services such as voicemail, multi-lines, conferencing; yet, they were different in services like paging, internet, call forwarding (diverting), call waiting and e-pay services. At the end, mobile companies can set marketing strategies based on such findings. Conclusion It is suggested that mobile companies focus on general advertisements and distant call services, but only a little focus on wireless services. They can also put more thought on services like paging, voicemail, internet and e-pay services respectively. It is also recommended that, for female customers (mostly within the first cluster), the companies should focus on pay phone services, distant calls, and free calls as well as voicemail and internet. On the other hand, for male customer with higher job stability, it is suggested to focus the most on distant call services and provision of special discounts with this regard, but the least on wireless and pay phone services. Besides, voicemail services, paging, call waiting, call forwarding and e-pay services should be the mobile company’s priority for male customers.

Rural-urban linkages are vital elements in a sustain­able food system. As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, supply chains were disrupted and fear of infection impacted food shopping decisions, push­ing consumers to seek local and safer options for procuring fresh produce. Direct marketing arose as a promising alternative for both consumers and producers. We undertook a study in Bengaluru, India, in order to understand what direct marketing activities have unfolded with the COVID-19 pan­demic. Media reports highlighted the plight of farmers struggling to market their harvest during lockdown as well as the farm to fork initiatives and lockdown farmers markets that have been created as a response. We see this moment as an opportu­nity to develop Bengaluru’s food system to be more sustainable, specifically through the City Region Food System framework. This study conducted online and telephone surveys with both consumers and producers in Bengaluru to explore the elements of supply and demand that have fos­tered and hindered direct marketing schemes. We found that consumers are interested in sourcing fruits and vegetables directly from farmers, but communi­cation and logistics between consumers and pro­ducers are major hindrances. Although producers are diversifying their marketing strate­gies, they need to be implemented at economically viable scales to ensure long-term success. We find that the role of technology, specifically messaging apps, can streamline direct marketing activities and remove the barriers that currently hamper rural-urban linkages. Further­more, existing community and farmer organiza­tions have the size and scale to make direct marketing schemes a worthy endeavor for both consumers and producers.

Even though the banking industry across the globe has undergone tremendous transformations especially digitalisation, research has barely kept pace with these changes especially as it has to do with marketing communication strategies. Thus, this paper examined how customers’ perceptions of banks marketing communication tools influence customer loyalty. 313 valid responses were obtained from Nigerian bank customers through a survey questionnaire. The partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) procedure was utilised to examine the measurement model and test the research hypotheses. The results indicate that elements of bank marketing communication including advertising, sales promotion, public relations and personal selling are significant predictors of customer loyalty, but direct marketing is not. This study has implications for the update of marketing communication and formulation of customer loyalty policy in commercial banks in Nigeria and other emerging economies with similar business and economic history. The contributions of the study were discussed.

In recent years, Canada has witnessed a rapid growth in short food supply chains. As in other countries, such marketing channels have emerged in Canada in response to a growing demand among consumers for fresh, local products. However, a unique feature of Canadian agriculture is that dairy, egg, and poultry production are under supply management. The government requirement for producers in these sectors to purchase a quota ensures that output matches domestic demand. Until recently, though, little attention had been paid to how this system affects the development of short food supply chains in the country. The pur­pose of our study is to examine this emerging issue. The results of our policy analysis suggest that small farmers in Canada face multiple challenges when seek­ing to produce and market specialty products that are under supply management. Furthermore, the cost of entering supply-managed sectors for producers varies as each province is responsible for establishing its own quota exemption limits, mini­mum quotas, and new entrant programs. Our study indicates that supply management policies have important implications for local and regional food system development and for food diversity in Canada.

Strategies for improving customer loyalty are a sine qua non for attracting new customers and retaining old ones in order to improve firms’ sustainable competitiveness. However, choice of marketing communication mix would differ between firms and across industries. This study examines the influence of integrated marketing communications (IMC) dimensions on customer loyalty to mobile telecommunication service among competing firms in telecommunication service industry. Using cross-sectional survey research design, multistage sampling procedure (stratified, quota and simple random) sampling techniques, data was collected from 150 respondents out of which n = 134 copies of the retrieved questionnaires. The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics (correlation and regression), while hypotheses were tested using the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results show a significant relationship between customer loyalty and direct marketing (r = .375**); publicity (r = .514**); sales promotion (r = .470**) and advertising r = .562**) respectively. The multiple regression result indicates R2 value of .483, meaning that integrated marketing communication dimensions accounted for 48.3% variance in customer loyalty. The study therefore recommends IMC as a strategic tool for targeting subscribers to patronize and retain them with a mobile telecom service provider for a long time. It further suggests that managers in the industry should prioritize their strategies on the basis of IMC dimension that makes the greatest contribution to the criterion of interest, with beta and high coefficient in their budgetary allocation for the optimal promotional mix to achieve the organisational goal both in short and long-run.

Campaigner (https://www.campaigner.com/) is a web-based, email marketing application that can be used to send targeted email messages and newsletters to patrons. Patron contact information can easily be managed within the system. With features such as branded templates, automated sending, and detailed reporting of email data such as open and click rates, Campaigner is a powerful tool for libraries of all types.

Florida Public Library, a school district public library in a farming and bedroom community on the edge of metropolitan New York, serving a population of 4,991, engaged in a door-to-door outreach campaign in 2016–2017 to raise its profile in the community, reach non-users and increase the number of patrons from 56% to 60% of its service population. Through walking local streets and knocking on doors, library staff hoped to sign up 200 new patrons. The article describes the steps used to develop and conduct the campaign, using teams of staff, trustees and Friends of the Library. How prospective patrons and their home addresses were discovered and what databases and software was used, materials and methods employed and the chronology of the campaign are detailed by following the library’s plans for summer, fall and spring activities. Mistakes made and lessons learned are shared from walking one community’s streets and speaking face to face to residents about library services, offered and desired.

Over the last decade, direct marketing practices have been widely used in the marketing of agricultural products in the world. The non-wood forest products (NWFP) have been affected by this development and direct marketing efforts of these products have made significant progress in the world. Direct marketing of NWFP in the world is organized with civil organizations, producers and consumers. On the other hand, it has been determined that no significant improvement has been achieved in NWFP, although partial improvement was observed in the direct marketing initiatives for agricultural products in Turkey. In this study, direct marketing options that were widely used in NWFP were discussed with examples. The benefits and risks of each direct marketing option for NWFP were demonstrated. In addition, some suggestions have been made in terms of giving direction to direct marketing initiatives in Turkey. The difficulty of inventory of these products due to the large size of the forests collected from large forest areas, the lack of communication with collectors, intermediaries and other marketing channel members, irregular use of products, lack of inspection and inadequacy of education were some of the important constraints for the direct marketing of NWFP.

Nowadays, companies offer product bundles with special discounts in order to sell more products. However, it is important to note that customers show different levels of loyalties to companies, and each segment of the market has unique features, which influences the customers’ buying patterns. The primary purpose of this paper is to propose a novel model for product bundling in e-commerce websites by using market segmentation variables and customer loyalty analysis. RFM model is employed to calculate customer loyalty. Subsequently, the customers are grouped based on their loyalty levels. Each group is then divided into different segments based on market segmentation variables. The product bundles are determined for each market segment via clustering algorithms. Apriori algorithm is also used to determine the association rules for each product bundle. Classification models are applied in order to determine which product bundle should be recommended to each customer. The results demonstrate that the silhouette coefficient, support, confidence, and accuracy values are higher when both customer loyalty level and market segmentation variables are used in product bundling. Accordingly, the proposed model increases the chance of success in direct marketing and recommending product bundles to customers.

Internet media is showing a steady growth and the question arises as to whether the communicative effects in terms of informing the consumers and readiness to respond continue to be achieved through the print media of direct marketing. The subject of research is the print media direct marketing, in order to find out about their use and effectiveness in the Republic of Serbia, by the consumers. The effectiveness of the mentioned media is seen from the perspective of consumers' reactions (which are grouped into target groups by age and gender) to promotional activities carried out through a specific print media direct marketing, which is mostly dependent on media habits, preferences and consumer attitudes. The paper will present the results of descriptive and comparative statistics of empirical research carried out in the Republic of Serbia. Of all tested printed media of direct marketing, the flyer is the most effective, in terms of reading content from it, by (potential) consumers.

This research explores the determinants of effective beginning farmer programming and implications for emerging and established programs. We use responses from 100 interviews with participants in the Building Farmers in the West Program, one of the longest-standing beginning farmer training programs in the United States, to understand how key course principles predict improved farm profitability. Results show that specific production changes after taking the courseÑincluding the number of cultivated varieties (negative), number of farm enterprises (positive), and length of production season (positive)Ñare correlated with improved farm profitability. We make recommendations for future beginning farmer programming based on these results.

Abstract This paper examines the importance of two resources, namely a market orientation and an entrepreneurial orientation, in new product development and satisfaction with firm performance among direct and alternative marketers. Using a partial least squares structural equation model and data from a 2013 survey, this paper models the effect of a market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation on satisfaction with current performance and expected future performance for agricultural firms in Ontario, Canada. Our results show that a market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation are important factors in determining rates of product and marketing innovations among farm-based agribusinesses. These findings further demonstrate that a market orientation is a powerful resource as it enables firms to become aware of opportunities to provide superior value for consumers, especially when operating in non-traditional markets.

The need for an updated framework for all types of farmers markets and the varied levels of capacity to share the impacts of their work led to the develop­ment of the Farmers Market Metrics (Metrics) program at the Farmers Market Coalition (FMC), a nonprofit working to strengthen farmers markets across the country. This essay provides a timeline of the steps and partnerships that led to the creation of this program, including the exploration of existing data collection systems suitable for grassroots markets, observations from markets engaged in evaluation, feedback by pilot users of the Metrics system, and best practices and recom­mendations uncovered during the development of Metrics.

The primary purpose of this publication is identifying the possibilities that the implementation of lead generation strategies provides to modern enterprises. It discusses the key aspects of this issue, demonstrating how the significance of organisations change, how their value effectively increases as a result of the implementation of tools furnished by processes that form an integral part of lead generation. The article defines the factors and processes that affect the effective course of actions undertaken within lead generation campaigns.

Promotional competitions are competitions in which prizes are awarded by lot or chance in order to promote goods or services. In order to protect participants and consumers against abuse, these competitions are usually regulated by gambling or consumer protection legislation. However, the relevant legislation is often complemented by self-regulation, which is the focus of this contribution. Self-regulation entails the regulation or governing of an industry by the role players in that industry. This article commences by explaining the relevant terminology and exploring self-regulation in general, including the various forms of self-regulation and the binding force thereof. The nature of self-regulation is discussed together with the advantages and challenges associated with this form of regulation. This is followed by some examples of self-regulation on a global level in order to provide a comparative perspective on the topic. The provisions of the International Chamber of Commerce's Consolidated Code of Advertising and Marketing Communications Practice are summarised and the European Advertising Standards Alliance's role in self-regulation is considered. Attention is also given to the relevant industry codes in the United Kingdom in view of the comprehensive way in which promotional competitions are covered by self-regulation in that country. The main part of the article centres on the self-regulatory position in South Africa. A brief overview of the role and function of the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASASA) is provided. The provisions of the ASASA's Code of Advertising Practice are then examined and some ASASA rulings are discussed in order to illustrate the relevant principles. Thereafter, the focus shifts to the Code of Conduct of the Wireless Application Service Providers' Association, which contains detailed provisions relating to promotional competitions. Some relevant rulings are also considered. In conclusion, comments are made regarding the current state of the self-regulation of promotional competitions in South Africa.

This paper aims to present a comparation between the structure of direct marketing plan in romanian companies and french companies. The article presents the importance of direct marketing plan, on how the plan is put into practice in romanian companies, applying direct marketing. By presenting this comparation between romanian and french models of structure related to direct marketing plan, the study contributes to the correct application of direct marketing plan into practice in romanian companies, considering the model of french companies. The paper aims to emphasize the importance of marketing plan in direct marketing, comparing and analyzing two different systems.

The banking industry has been seeking novel ways to leverage database marketing efficiency. However, the nature of bank marketing data hindered the researchers in the process of finding a reliable analytical scheme. Various studies have attempted to improve the performance of Artificial Neural Networks in predicting clients’ intentions but did not resolve the issue of imbalanced data. This research aims at improving the performance of predicting the willingness of bank clients to apply for a term deposit in highly imbalanced datasets. It proposes enhanced Artificial Neural Network models (i.e., cost-sensitive) to mitigate the dramatic effects of highly imbalanced data, without distorting the original data samples. The generated models are evaluated, validated, and consequently compared to different machine-learning models. A real-world telemarketing dataset from a Portuguese bank is used in all the experiments. The best prediction model achieved 79% of geometric mean, and misclassification errors were minimized to 0.192, 0.229 of Type I & Type II Errors, respectively. In summary, an interesting Meta-Cost method improved the performance of the prediction model without imposing significant processing overhead or altering original data samples.

Klasifikasi merupakan teknik dalam data mining untuk mengelompokkan data berdasarkan keterikatan data terhadap data sampel. Pada penelitian ini, kami melakukan perbandingan 9 teknik klasifikasi untuk mengklasifikasi respon pelanggan pada dataset Bank Direct Marketing. Perbandingan teknik klasifikasi ini dilakukan untuk mengetahui model dalam teknik klasfikasi yang paling efektif untuk mengklasifikasi target pada dataset Bank Direct Marketing. Teknik klasifikasi yang digunakan yaitu Support Vector Machine, AdaBoost, Naïve Bayes, Constant, KNN, Tree, Random Forest, Stochastic Gradient Descent, dan CN2 Rule. Proses klasifikasi diawali dengan preprocessing data untuk melakukan penghilangan missing value dan pemilihan fitur pada dataset. Pada tahap evaluasi digunakan teknik 10 fold cross validation. Setelah dilakukan pengujian, didapatkan bahwa hasil klasifikasi menunjukkan akurasi terbaik diperoleh oleh model Tree, Constant, Naive Bayes, dan Stochastic Gardient Descent. Kemudian diikuti oleh model Random Forest, K-Nearest Neighbor, CN-2 Rule, AdaBoost dan Support Vector Machine. Dari keempat model yang menunjukkan hasil akurasi terbaik, untuk kasus ini Stochastic Gradient Descent terpilih sebagai model yang memiliki akurasi terbaik dengan nilai akurasi sebesar 0,972 dan hasil visualisasi yang dihasilkan lebih jelas untuk mengklasifikasi target pada dataset Bank Direct Marketing. Abstract Classification is a technique in data mining to classify data based on the attachment of data to the sample data.. In this paper, we present the comparison of 9 classification techniques performed to classify customer response on the dataset of Bank Direct Marketing. The techniques performed to find out the effectiveness model in the classification technique used to classify targets on the dataset of Bank Direct Marketing. The techniques used are Support Vector Machine, AdaBoost, Naïve Bayes, Constant, KNN, Tree, Random Forest, Stochastic Gradient Descent, and CN2 Rule. The classification process begins with preprocessing data to perform missing value omissions and feature selection on the dataset. Cross validation technique, with k value is 10, used in the evaluation stage. After testing, it was found that the classification results showed the best accuracy obtained when using the Tree model, Constant, Naive Bayes and Stochastic Gradient Descent. Afterwards the Random Forest model, K-Nearest Neighbor, CN-2 Rule, AdaBoost, and Support Vector Machine are followed. Of the four models with the high accuracy results, in this case Stochastic Gradient Descent was selected as the best accuracy model with an accuracy value of 0.972 and resulting visualization more clearly to classify targets on the dataset of Bank Direct Marketing.

In 2011, the Oregon legislature passed the Farm Direct Marketing Law (FDML), which took effect in 2012. The law clarified licensing and food safety requirements for direct-to-consumer sales at farmers markets, farm stands, and similar venues. It also included a “cottage food” provision allowing farms to make and sell certain low-risk, value-added products from farm-grown ingredients, direct to consumer, without a food processor’s license. Advocates predicted enhanced small farm viability through new products and revenue streams, market season extension, reduced processing costs, test marketing opportunities, and other avenues. Detractors warned the deregulation would cause outbreaks of foodborne illness. In 2016, the law’s fifth year, we explored these predictions and early outcomes. We conducted a focus group with stakeholders and semistructured interviews with two key informants, 18 farmers, and 24 farmers market managers around Oregon. We found farmers mak­ing and selling a variety of value-added products under the FDML. We found no foodborne illness linked to FDML products. Interviewees described multiple benefits resulting from the law, many corresponding to predicted benefits. They also described unanticipated benefits at the community level. Interviewees identified barriers and recom­mended changes related to the law and related education. We discuss the feasibility of these recommendations as well as the long-term poten­tial of the cottage food provision. We end by reflecting on the FDML as a whole, as it supports Oregon’s direct market farming sector.

The last century has seen steady decline in the number of farms and ever-worsening concentra­tion of economic power in the food system. In more recent decades, agricultural sales directly to consumers have grown, raising questions about the role of economic privilege and its spatial distribu­tion in supporting direct marketing. We address this question in a three-part analysis of 216 counties in nine Northeast states. First, we com­pare four direct-sales indicators and their common covariates among county types defined by metro­politan status and adjacency to metro/nonmetro borders. Second, we map four direct-sales variables over these county types. Third, we construct panel regression models with county as a fixed-effect in order to examine the influence of county-level household income on direct agricultural sales while controlling for other county-level variables shown to have an influence: population, vegetable produc­tion, farm size, and number of farms. Together, these three perspectives—bivariate, spatial, and multivariate—show that economic privilege is a factor in direct food sales, but not necessarily a driver. The variability across the region and the different patterns associated with different direct-marketing variables indicate that both researchers and practitioners would benefit from strategies sensitive to context, contingency, and change over time.

This paper examines the impact of participation in direct marketing on the entire distribution of farm sales using the unconditional quantile regression (UQR) estimator. Our analysis yields unbiased estimates of the unconditional impact of direct marketing on farm sales and reveals the heterogeneous effects that occur across the distribution of farm sales. The impacts of direct marketing efforts are uniformly negative across the UQR results, but declines in sales tend to grow smaller as sales increase. Producers planning to sell more in local outlets should expect sales to decline. Marketing experts and extension professionals can use this information to guide farmers who are considering initiating or expanding direct marketing activities.

Direct selling, as a type of relationship marketing, facilitates the construction of a customized relation between the company and its clients and assures a long term collaboration between the two parts. For a direct selling company, direct marketing is a powerfull tool used to build strong relationships with the clients. There are more viewpoints regarding the relation between direct selling and direct marketing. The purpose of the research is to investigate the relation between direct selling through salesmen and/or catalogues and direct marketing. The objectives are: (1) to synthetize the approaches regarding the direct selling through salesmen and/or catalogues as a type of direct marketing; (2) to present and to argue the researcher’s own viewpoint. We consider that direct selling is a component of direct marketing.