Rising paper costs, rising postal costs, the plunging fortunes of financial services providers and the possible elimination of Saturday mail deliveries made this much less than a red-letter year for direct mail.
While it will remain the largest segment of direct marketing by budget, spending on U.S. direct mail marketing will decline 3.4% this year to $34.3 billion, from last year’s $35.4 billion figure, according to the VSS Communications Industry Forecast. Business-to-consumer messaging will continue to draw most of the dollars at $21 billion, but that figure is off 3.7% from last year’s B-to-C total. B-to-B direct mail will account for $13.3 billion in 2009, down 2.8% from the 2008 total.
More than most channels, direct mail has been affected by the recession’s impact on specific industries. For example, credit card issuers sent out 391 million pieces of direct mail to consumers in the third quarter of 2009, according to Mintel Comperemedia, a 71% drop from one year ago.
Mintel also found that this year’s mailings tended to include less attractive credit offers, with only 6% of Q3 mailings offering fixed-rate cards compared to 27% in Q3 2008. That trend is unlikely to change, since the new Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act imposes a 45-day notice for changes in credit card terms.
Mortgage and home equity direct mail flattened out from December 2008 to May 2009 at about 38 million mailings per month, Mintel also found. Since both those categories had been in steep declines for the last three years — from a peak of 4 billion pieces in 2005 to 1.1 billion in 2008 — that plateau qualified as good news.
Telecom providers and auto insurance companies have risen in importance as direct-mail verticals, but the overall downward trend will continue, according to Borrell Associates. The study predicts that U.S. direct mail spending will decline 39% from 2008 to the end of 2013, winding up at $29.8 billion.
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