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Media Usage in 2008
A report published by Target Marketing this month assessing media usage in 2008, indicates that direct mail is still the media channel of choice for customer acquisition and comes a close second for customer retention.
Highlights from the report are summarised below.
Delving into media preferences for producing ROI, direct mail continues to hold the crown for acquisition activity at 34 percent (refer to chart 4 below), with e-mail (24 percent), SEM (8 percent), outbound telemarketing (7 percent) and catalogs (6 percent) trailing far behind.
When it comes to acquisition delivery methods, direct mail proves it's still the workhorse at 81 percent (refer to chart 6), followed by: e-mail (71 percent), SEM (60 percent), SEO (59 percent) and advertising on outside Web sites (57 percent). The only changeup from last year is between the third, fourth and fifth slot positions: SEM beat out both Web ads and SEO, which then gave a little shove to Web ads to grab fourth place.
On the retention front, e-mail and direct mail jockey for first place in the ROI race (refer to chart 7), with the online medium edging out its offline competitor by four percentage points (37 percent vs. 34 percent). Again, both media were predicted to increase their footholds in 2008, while catalogs and outbound telemarketing took another tumble. Two media worthy of mention are advertisements on external Web sites and insert media, which posted small gains in becoming marketers’ go-to ROI methods.
This comes as reassuring news for print service providers, as the threat of rising online marketing spend and increasing environmental pressures continue to loom over the industry. Hopefully it also serves a wake up call for printers who haven't already seized this direct mail personalisation opportunity to wake up and smell the market!
Click on a chart to enlarge.
Posted on Thursday, 27 March 2008 at 11:55 PM | TrackBack: http://www.veedeepee.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/110