Telegraph beefs up its direct mail activity at expense of broadcast

The Telegraph Media Group is shifting its advertising spend away from broadcast and into digital, in a bid to move away from big brand advertising.

The newspaper publisher has traditionally split its advertising spend equally between broadcast and direct mail, including digital and customer relationship management activity. Katie Vanneck, marketing director of Telegraph Media Group, is driving through the change, which will mean the make-up of marketing spend will shift to 60% direct mail and 40% broadcast.

The group believes the new approach will allow it to take advantage of its hefty investment in customer data.

Vanneck says: “We are looking at the marketing budget in a different way.

Historically the Telegraph has spent money on big brand messages. But this is hard to measure. How can you justify spending money that you can’t attribute a return on investment on?” The Daily Telegraph spent about £1.5m on marketing in the second half of 2006.

Vanneck adds the group has no plans to review its roster of appointed agencies, which include Clemmow Hornby Inge and Universal McCann.

She has also firmed up the group’s commitment to increased marketing spend in the digital arena. “We launched Telegraph TV and Telegraph Talk recently and we will see more content innovation in digital.” Vanneck would not commit on particular innovations but is firmly behind increasing its marketing spend in the digital arena. This increased from 5% to 20% over this past year, as it sought to enhance its digital output.

Vanneck adds: “It would be foolish of us to invest in digital content if we didn’t follow through in terms of marketing.”