UK direct mail bouncing back from spend dip
Direct mail showed a surprising resurgence in the last quarter of 2005, suggesting that the medium is primed for recovery after previous declines in spending.
According to statistics released by the Direct Mail Information Service (DMIS), direct mail expenditure grew by 2.4 per cent between October and December last year.
This growth was led by three sectors: leisure and entertainment, which showed the largest improvement with a rise of 22.2 per cent; charities, which increased investment in mailings by 13.9 per cent; and travel and tourism, which built its mailing activity by 15.7 per cent.
Meanwhile, the banking and home shopping sectors, which significantly reduced their direct mail activity in the first three quarters of 2005, showed signs of returning to the medium.
A Royal Mail spokesman says: “Businesses are increasingly understanding the power of direct marketing on their bottom line. In areas where there has been a significant increase – like the leisure and charities sectors – organisations have seen how the key values of direct marketing can complement their other marketing activity.”
Jo Howard-Brown, managing director at DMIS, says: “With the traditionally heavy mailers such as banks and mail order companies cutting back activity for much of the year, it was inevitable that the end-of-year figures would show a fall against 2004.
“But with the figures showing bank activity recovering again and home shopping activity on the rise, coupled with continued strong growth in other sectors, there are certainly grounds for optimism that the decline in total volumes over the past year has levelled out. We can look forward to stability in 2006.”
In September last year, DMIS reported a reduction in the overall volume of mailings, which was attributed to UK banks moving away from blanket activity toward more targeted communications.
Speaking to Precision Marketing in December 2005, Alex Batchelor, marketing director at Royal Mail, warned that the industry could not afford to rest on its laurels after a marked decline in the use of the medium. He said: “The mail industry has increased its share of total media in the past decade, but in the past six months, it has gone backwards. It is a challenge to direct marketing agencies, media planners, Royal Mail, TNT, UK Mail and DHL to focus on building the market, rather than just taking business from each other.”
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