Offline takes lion's share of direct marketing budgets

Despite the growing use of digital media in integrated marketing campaigns, traditional offline media still feature highly in terms of direct marketing budget share.

by Helen Leggatt

In a report entitled “The Integrated Marketing Media Mix”, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) discovered that marketers are increasingly integrating their direct marketing campaigns.

“Marketers are using a whole range of channels, whereas they may have concentrated on just offline media before,” said the report author Yoram Wurmser, research manager for the DMA, reports BtoBonline.

However, offline media still take the lion’s share of direct marketing budgets, with only email getting a look-in, in second place to direct mail.

Interestingly, the survey found that direct mail was being primarily used for the initial contact with consumers and set the tone for the rest of the campaign. Email and telephone were then used to follow up the direct mail activity.

“What we see in our research is that digital media ranging from the firmly established email to the nascent mobile marketing channels are complementing — not replacing — direct mail, telephone, events, and direct response broadcast advertisements,” said Wurmser.