Direct marketing stands up well in recession
Direct mail has stood up well to the challenges posed by the recession and the channel carries weight in the boardroom, according to Marketing Week’s Direct Mail Attitudes survey.
The survey found that 56% of marketers believe that direct mail has influence with the top executives or board members at their companies.
Just 5% report that the recession has had a “very bad” effect on the channel, while 7% claim the downturn has had no effect at all.
Despite the board-level support for direct mail, marketers themselves are torn on what is the optimum response from a “successful” direct mail campaign.
Forty-two per cent say a 5-10% rate of response is acceptable, but in practice only a fifth (22%) actually see this result, with more than half (52%) saying that their response rates fall below 5%.
Elsewhere, there is evidence that indicates that the recent postal strikes could have caused a shift from physical mail to email.
Nearly half (45%) of respondents say that they are using interactive methods compared with 33% using physical direct mail, while 22% use both together.
Environmental concerns could also have accelerated the move towards online with over half (54%) claiming that green issues do affect the amount of mail they send out, while 46% say that it has no impact.
The survey polled several hundred readers of Marketing Week magazine and users of MarketingWeek.co.uk in October this year.
