Direct marketing entails reaching out directly to your customers with your marketing messages and not going through advertisers or other "middlemen" for promoting your product or service. This way, you bear the production and distribution costs but don't pay any advertising fees.
For example…
Door-to-door pamphlet distribution is a type of direct marketing. You haven’t paid any advertising fees to display your ad in a newspaper or on TV. The marketing message gets out directly to your customer’s doorstep.