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As marketers convene in San Diego during the week of October 18 for the Direct Marketing Association's 2009 annual show, several trends have emerged in the direct and digital marketing space, which have the industry awash with buzz.
In fact, social media has bubbled to the surface in marketing conversations as a highly effective means to reach customers, and direct marketers are currently exploring ways to both exploit the medium and quantify its effectiveness. They are also looking closely at the delicate balance between gaining enough information to target customers based on behavior and interests, while not bumping up against privacy concerns.
Crossing into other channels
Like e-mail, social media marketing's appeal lies in its relatively low cost barrier, and in these tough economic times, that has only accelerated interest as marketers gravitate to measurable media.
“The list industry has changed dramatically,” says Jay Schwedelson, corporate VP at Worldata, a list management company.
“We don't call ourselves a list company anymore,” Schwedelson explains. “List companies have migrated to becoming data agencies rather than list organizations. The suite of services we are providing are very different from 24 months ago. We're in different businesses and competing against different organizations.”
Much of that work is related to Web services.
“We're creating Web environments rather than just saying, ‘here's a list, let me know how it goes,'” he adds. “We're involved from program development to execution and analysis. It's gone beyond simply providing data. We're competing more with ad agencies than we have in the past.”
Many companies in his sector, Schwedelson adds, are having a difficult time making the transition. However, even nontraditional companies are beginning to understand the value of direct marketing principles. |
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Fall 2009 consumer e-mail list prices are down 24% year over year to $114 per thousand, according to Worldata's latest List Price Index.
"It's a direct reflection of the economy," said Jay Schwedelson, VP at Worldata, explaining the precipitous drop. Consumer e-mail exhibited the largest price decrease. Most other categories are stabilizing after reaching bottom, he added.
"Demand is low to begin with because no one is prospecting," Schwedelson explained.
He suggested that the landscape is worse than the numbers suggest: "Keep in mind, this is rate card, not taking into account any discounting."
The lowest percentage decrease occurred in the public sector list category, with a 0.57% drop in average list price to $173/M.
Printed newsletter and donor categories were the two sectors showing increases this year, up 3.64% to $171/M and 1.2% to $84/M, respectively.
Business-to-business e-mail is the highest-priced domestic category, with a straight average price of $288/M, a decrease of $5/M from last year.
Fall 2009 also marks the first full-year that international e-mail data was tracked. That category's prices are holding steady quarter-to-quarter, but have fell compared to last year. |
