There are a few ways in which you can you mail marketing. Many companies use email marketing as the main way to communicate with their customers. This can allow them to quickly reach each contact and even personalise the email and/or products / services that you show to them dependant on their marketing preferences. The beauty of marketing via email is that you can track who has received your email, how has opened it and even what they have clicked on within the email.
Some companies prefer to contact their customers via post, allowing them to send out catalogues and newsletter. These again can be personalised but it may be a bit harder to do with Print work.
Post mailing can still work well for many but it is quite an expensive process compared to email marketing and it is hard to track the results of how successful the campaign has been.