Broker Roundtable: Is the Economy Turning Around?

Welcome to Broker Roundtable, where each week we ask list brokers to give their opinions on issues that matter to the marketing community.
This week questions: What signs is the list business seeing that indicate the economy is turning around?

Our current panel includes: Lori Collins of Focus USA; Matt Kaiser of Veradata; Jeff Kobil of LDS Group, Herb Torgersen of Directinnovations and Kerry Tranfa of Infocus Marketing. Would you like to be considered to be a member of our roundtable? Contact Larry Riggs at [email protected].)

Lori Collins, corporate vice president, Focus USA
If we look at direct marketing media overall—postal data, emails for acquisition, email appending, data appending and modeling—there are definitely signs that the economy is turning around. Our clients are expanding their traditional list marketing initiatives and including email and other data touch points to enhance their branding and to incent prospects to buy. Another major sign of economic improvement is that creditors have started to mail again. This is a sign of good things to come.

Matt Kaiser, executive vice president, Veradata:
I’m not sure there are “strong” signs that the economy is turning, but the mail plans of midsized organization reflect a hint of optimism. Looking at year over year trends in direct mail budgets/forecasts, many mailers intend to mail more in 2011, provided the spending continues. While this is a leading indicator, it is not set in stone and results for the first quarter will need to hold for this to play out the way it appears. One other indicator is that travel marketing is on the rise. We see more interest in leisure travel marketing than in 2010. The fact that this particular segment is looking to increase efforts is, indeed, a positive sign for direct marketers.

Jeff Kobil, Co-CEO, LDS Group Inc.:
Beginning in the second half of last year we started to see an increase in the use of direct mail. I think most list companies would agree to that. And results have held perhaps having to do with less clutter in the mail box. The expectation is also that direct mail will grow above 2010 levels. At a recent Direct Marketing Club of New York luncheon, speaker Bruce Biegel of Winterberry said his forecast for direct mail showed a 5.8% increase in spending over 2010. This is being supported in many ways with mailers learning to maximize their use of modeling and co-ops both in prospecting and reactivation campaigns.

Herb Torgersen, president, DirectInnovations Inc.
One very relevant sign I see is the increase in direct mail credit card offerings. Both on the consumer and B-to-B front new mailers have been testing direct mail. However, we should not only look to the list industry for a sign that the economy is turning around. For example, retail sales in January were up quite dramatically. As a marketer, we also should be paying attention to how the economy is performing in our own back yards. I have noticed that shopping malls have had better traffic in recent months that in the past two or three years and that restaurants have increased their traffic significantly as well. Looking at these signs in my own back yard indicates that consumers now have more confidence to spend their disposable income. Now is when direct marketers should be increasing their test budgets to tap into the increased amount of disposable income available to be spent by consumers.

Kerry Tranfa, sales consultant/broker, Infocus Lists
Some of the signs that I have seen are customers increasing the quantities of names they are using, as well as using multiple lists. Also, clients are expanding into multi-channel campaigns where they are utilizing both email and postal lists to get their message out there. Overall, customers are looking to increase their efforts by marketing smarter—if it costs a little more but the response is higher, the customer will go for it because it is worth it. And if it works and the response is there, then the customer is willing to pay to do it all over again, and most likely increase the number of names they are purchasing.

Related articles: