The Use of the Internet in Direct Marketing: Advantages, Results and Limitations

Internet technology has caused a fundamental change in the communication sphere in last decade. Its application is particularly important in the process of interactive communication with customers. The pursuit of self-preservation and improvement of business competitiveness in the globalization era emphasizes the need to create more satisfied and loyal customers. A crucial task of the company in that process is to find a combination of communication forms that will enable efficient and effective transfer of appropriate marketing messages to the target market. The research was conducted with the primary aim to illuminate causes, describe the features and establish tendencies in the development of the Internet as the modern marketing media. The study is realized by using descriptive statistics, hypothetical-deductive method and comparative analysis. The results indicate a lot of advantages of the Internet usage in interactive communication as a necessity of modern business, but also significant issues related to customer privacy protection.