Tag: American Express

Many large financial services firms are experimenting with a blend of direct mail and e-mail marketing to communicate with their current customers and merchandise their new products and services. In contrast, many smaller financial services have turned to e-mail to attract new customers with acquisition offers.

According to Mintel Comperemedia, a competitive intelligence service in Chicago that analyzes direct mail, e-mail marketing and print media, several smaller companies are emerging as more frequently tracked entities in the e-mail marketing arena.

“E-mail marketing has been able to serve as a more affordable option for smaller, lesser-know companies that need to reach new consumers,” said Carmen Curran, analyst for Mintel Comperemedia, in a statement. “Major financial services companies continue to take advantage of e-mail as well, but they have stronger resources to market through direct mail and other key channels. They are also concentrating more on marketing to current customers through e-mail rather than acquiring new ones.”

Mintel Comperemedia said that as the e-mail sector evolves, companies such as Metabank in the banking sector and First Premier Bank in the credit card sector have been identified as key players, flooding consumer mailboxes with acquisition offers and promotions. However, on the direct mail front, these companies are distributing a significantly lower share of offers than their larger competitors.

As reported March 13 on DMNews.com [http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/direct-mail/40362.html] in the direct mail category, the top 2006 overall mailers for acquisition financial services direct mail pieces were Chase (1.7 billion), Capital One (1.2 billion), American Express (1 billion), Citibank (980 million), and Bank of America (920 million). While many smaller companies turn acquisition efforts to e-mail marketing, larger companies are opting for e-mail marketing to cross-sell their products and communicate with their customers about their services.