All Together Now-Not!
A survey of recent and potential attendees of National Center for Database Marketing conferences shows marked differences in ancillary services valued by database marketers and those offered by service providers.
The survey broke respondents into database users and service providers. Users were asked which services, from a list of choices, they obtained from outside vendors, while providers were asked which services they offered.
Of the top five desired services listed by users, only one-database enhancement services, used by 60%-was in the top five services offered. And it was fifth, offered by 73% of providers.
Of the rest of the top five services marketers contracted for, most fell in the lower half of the list of services provided. The top requested service was printing capabilities, mentioned by 76% of the users. But only 45% of the vendors offered this service, ranking it 12th out of 14 named services.
List purchasing (66%) and mail production (64%) were the second and third most requested services by database marketers. These services were offered by 62% and 55% of the providers. At 92%, the service most frequently offered by providers was database marketing strategy and consulting. Only 35% of all users indicated they went to an outside vendor for such services, ranking it 10th. Database creation and management services, which 90% of providers offered, were contracted by 44% of users. Both database research and mail programs were offered by 77% of the providers, but they were requested by only 44% and 42%, respectively, of the users.
Another significant break between the two groups was apparent in their responses to one business-climate question: Only one-third of the users said the climate now was either “better” or “a little better” than it had been a year ago, compared with 52% of the service providers. Users were twice as likely to believe things have gone downhill during the past year: 38% indicated that things were either “a little worse” or “worse” than a year ago, compared with 18% of providers.
However, the outlook for the future among both groups was closer. Thirty-nine percent of the users anticipate a “better” or “a little better” 1999, compared with 37% of the providers. And while 32% of the users felt things would either be “a little worse” or “worse” in 1999, 25% of the providers agreed with them.
One area both agreed on was that the Internet’s importance would increase during the next few years. Service providers, however, see it as being more important, with 28% of the providers listing it as either “extremely important” or “very important” now, compared with 19% of users. Just under half (49%) of the users said it would reach that level in a year, compared with 65% of the providers.
The numbers didn’t really converge until predictions for five years out were made. At that point, 82% of the users said the Internet would be either extremely or very important, compared with 87% of providers.
Perhaps the most effective barometer of database marketing’s importance is the change in a company’s level of expenditure. More than two out of five (43%) of users said next year’s database marketing budget would be larger than this year. Thirty-seven percent said it would be the same, and 20% said it would be reduced.
Results were based on questionnaires mailed to 4,220 individuals who had either registered for an NCDM conference during the past two years, or who planned to attend the fall 1998 conference. A total of 190 responses were collected from individuals at 173 companies. Sixty-four percent identified themselves as database marketing service users, and 36% said they were database marketing service providers.
The survey was conducted by Peoria, IL-based Customer Development Corp. NCDM is co-sponsored by the Direct Marketing Association and Primedia Intertec, the publisher of DIRECT.
