Rise in Direct Mail volume

Despite signs of an overall economic slowdown statistics released by the Direct Mail Information Service show that direct mail volume increased by 4.5% year on year in the July to September period. Over that quarter some 1.127 billion items of direct mail were sent.
Expenditure also rose, up 5.9% year on year at £510.4 million.
The rise in volume was largely d r.iven by an increase in mailings from the insurance and home shopping sectors. In the former, mailing volumes rose 19.7% year on year to 94.54 million items while in the home shopping sector volume hit
122.8 million — up 9.2%. Of the smaller volume mailers, the most significant increase came in the health sector where there was a 47.4% year on year increase, volume reaching 9.14 million items.

Mailings to the lucrative AB socio-economic sector actually fell sharply – down 16.2% year on year, while mailings to DEs rose by 22.2%.