“I heard today that direct marketing is peaking,” Peter Francese said to the luncheon audience at the List Vision conference in New York on Tuesday. “For your sake, I hope it doesn’t, because you know what comes after a peak.”
The way to avoid that peak is to know your customer, said Francese, demographics trends analyst at Ogilvy & Mather, and the founder of American Demographics magazine. He offered up three observations about consumers to help marketers do just that.
Observation No. 1: An aging set of consumers means a shift in both lifestage and lifestyles.
No question about it Americans are getting older, Francese pointed out. Half of all U.S. householders will be age 50 or older within five years. And, over 80% of all household growth will be in the 50-plus age range.
The bad news: “We may see a gradual decline in direct marketing because people over 50 have all the things they want,” Francese said. (Except when it comes to their grandchildren in which case the 55 to 65 set “will spare no expense,” he quipped.)
The good news, though, is that this group can’t get enough services. One reason is they are buying second homes. Among people 55 to 64, there will be a 22% growth in the purchase of second homes between 2003 and 2008.
“The real estate industry is thrilled,” Francese said. But direct marketers will have to work harder to find these people because they will be at their country place or beach retreat instead of at home where you want to contact them, he said. “I estimate that 1 in 3 households are empty every weekend.”
Observation No. 2: More highly educated women are likely to demand more from you.
“Women received 58% of bachelor’s and master’s degrees this year,” he said. “In most colleges, women are two-thirds of the students.”
For direct marketers this means that women’s wages will rise every year and they will demand goods and services.
How to reach them? Like other college-educated consumers, they read more and want product details, Francese said. They like print and are also avid Web buyers.
Observation No. 3: The character of work and leisure is changing.
One big trend is that office workers are now a majority of workers. Another is that rising knowledge and independent workers blur the line between work and leisure.
The result?
“More consumers are both browsing and buying from their place of work,” Francese said.
The key to reaching them is understanding that they feel time is money. “Be sure to send them relevant offers, not stuff that wastes their time,” Francese said.
In general, the lesson for DMers is: “Place and timing of delivery of DM messages will become even more critical to the success of a direct campaign,” he said.
