Before the days of the internet, the majority of companies marketing was done by paper mail outs and door to door sales people. Paper mail outs could end up being very costly and you not seeing much of a return. One of the biggest issues with print work is making sure that it is all one hundred percent correct before it is printed as unfortunately unlike online publications, you normally will have to pay for the whole job to be corrected and printed again or risk sending something out that contains mistakes.

Door to door sales people can also be expensive. You may have two or three field agents out a few days a week and only generate one sale containing a small profit. Once you have taken in to account the salary that you are paying the members of staff, you will probably have lost on the deal.

Despite this, many companies still do mail outs and this does seem to still work quite well for the retail industry as it allows people to see a sample of products available or a sales promotion that is approaching.