Direct Selling

Direct Selling is a general term for a type of marketing that is usually performed by an individual instead of a company. It refers to the use of interpersonal or social networks to market products and services for business purposes as opposed to the more traditional and common practices of wide-range advertising.

The term is technically a type of marketing that can be used as part of an overall marketing strategy which may or may not encompass multiple tactics. For example, the most common marketing tactic in a direct selling strategy is word of mouth.

Many companies which utilize a direct selling strategy facilitate it with a multi-level marketing (MLM) compensation structure. For this reason, the two terms are often confused with one another and used interchangeably.