Winterberry Group's White Paper – Vertical Market Trends in Direct Mail 2006

The direct mail marketing industry enjoyed another year of robust growth in 2006 as total spending on U.S. direct mail services reached USD 60.6 billion, an increase of 7.5 percent from 2005 estimates. A number of factors—including the relative ease with which mailers absorbed a 5.4 percent postal rate hike and the lack of high-performing alternative channels—helped maintain this solid pace of growth, despite the emergence of several significant marketplace constraints, including increases in raw material and logistics costs.

Winterberry Group (WG) projects that direct mail investment growth will continue to outpace growth in traditional “above-the-line” advertising, but will slow slightly in 2007 and beyond. We project overall spending on direct mail services will reach USD 73.6 billion by 2009, reflecting a compound annual growth of 6.8 percent per year for the 2005 to 2009 period.