Marketing deals with so many different things, you just cannot simplify it into a single kind of advertisement. I have seen many occasions when I felt a company was attempting to do just that.

The time comes around for more marketing material so they immediately fall back on the staples of the industry. They might print off some more brochures or put up some more posters, maybe churn out another TV commercial, write up another radio ad, but they do not go into new territory.

Marketing is anything that helps promote your business, and even that statement can deal with a lot of different things.

For instance, there is what could be considered direct marketing and indirect marketing. A postcard promoting a sale or a brochure talking about how great your services are is going to be a form of direct promoting. It tells people to buy from you and everyone who picks it up knows that it serves no purpose other than promoting.

Now, that is not a bad thing, but it is still exactly what these kinds of marketing devices are.

The next is indirect marketing, where the point is not to tell people to buy from you, but get your brand name engrained in their minds. Calendar printing is often a great example of this style of marketing.

Often when it comes to calendars that companies hand out, they do not directly divulge about their company at all. They will have calendars dealing with natural wonders in nature, or tips for improving something in a person’s life, maybe funny jokes each month. In short, nothing that tells people about how good the company is.

However, there will be a company logo in the bottom corner of every page. You will know when you look at that calendar which company covered the costs of the calendar printing, and that is all it really needs to do. The purpose of direct marketing is often to make your name always close to people, so when they naturally need your services, your name will be there for them to find.

There are so many different kinds of marketing that work well with both of these forms of marketing, and the same kind of advertisement can be interchangeable between the two. For example, a calendar can be more direct in the way it markets. You can have posters, which are very subtle, just as you can have posters that make their point very clear.

Each situation will dictate which kind of marketing you should use for your company. However, to know what the right kind of marketing to use you need to first understand exactly what they are. Figure out whether direct or indirect is the best for your customer base, and go from there. You never want to use the wrong type or you will end up wasting your marketing budget.