As it grows in size, the DMA’s membership has also been changing in character Direct marketers have always been a diverse lot. But as evidenced by the evolving membership of the Direct Marketing Association, they are becoming even more so.

“If you looked at us six years ago, you would certainly say we had many more traditional direct marketers,” says Peter Eustis, the DMA’s senior vice president of membership. “Of course, we still have those members – the catalogers, the mail order companies. But the membership is changing from what it was.”

Indeed, it is shifting because of the influx of two very different kinds of outfits: established companies that have not done a lot of direct marketing in the past and the new e-commerce marketers.

Eustis says that because so many more types of companies are getting into selling direct, they join the DMA with concerns about mailing and telemarketing issues. “People wouldn’t have thought five years ago that they were direct marketing companies,” she says. “Direct marketing is becoming mainstream.”

These new companies include pharmaceutical firms using DM as part of their direct-to-consumer efforts; newspapers using DM to build circulation; and consumer goods firms trying to drive brands.

Some of the new companies in the past five months include Springfield, IL’s State Journal-Register, Shaw’s Supermarkets, Starwood Hotel & Resorts, Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, Harley-Davidson and the Regional Water Authority of New Haven.

“Because they’re not traditional direct marketers, it’s changed the whole relationship,” says Eustis. “It used to be the new members were entrepreneurs. Now you’re getting a lot of companies that are experimenting with direct marketing as another way of doing business. As a result we have to provide a lot more services.”

The Internet companies are also coming on board to learn some tried-and-try DM techniques – especially now that a dose of reality has been jolted into the cyberworld.

Says Eustis: “The Internet companies that are surviving are hiring direct marketers, so a lot of times they’ll say, `I think we should get involved with the DMA.'”

And those dot-coms aren’t only coming into the DMA through its Internet subsidiaries – the Association for Interactive Media and the Internet Alliance. In the past year, over 150 Internet companies have joined the DMA proper.

H. Robert Wientzen, the DMA’s president and CEO, says that a year ago, he would have been surprised at how many dot-coms were joining the DMA itself, but not now. “The poor performance by so many B-to-C marketers drove them to learn more about direct marketing,” he says. “Many of the skills direct marketers have long had were the ones they needed to get.”

Also of note is how these new members are joining. For a year, companies have been able to sign up right from the DMA’s Web site and they’ve been doing that with gusto: one-third of the new members during this past year joined that way.

Wientzen says the more diverse membership is partly the result of the association’s marketing efforts in terms of attending trade shows in other industries and mailing to other segments. B-to-B companies are also becoming a more noticeable part of the membership.

Dot-coms aren’t the only companies that have new DM employees convincing them to become DMA members. Such was the case with when director of relationship marketing Ken Neher joined SmithKline Beecham Consumer Healthcare five years ago. “The DMA is a very important body because it helps define the ethics for the industry and its membership,” Neher says.

The association’s membership is also changing in size: it’s getting bigger. The last fiscal year (ended in June) was a banner one, with 900 new companies signing up. Eustis says membership has probably doubled in the past three years; in the past five, the number of domestic companies has shot up by 41%, from 2,700 to 3,800.

The DMA, with subsidiaries AIM and IA, now has more than 5,000 member companies, domestic and international (currently, 600 members are from outside the United States, spread across 52 countries). These include some big names: AT&T, IBM, Microsoft, the New York Times and Procter & Gamble.

“We’ve gone over the 5,000-member mark and that’s a watershed for us,” says Wientzen.

One thing hasn’t changed: the marketer/vendor breakdown of the membership. It’s still 60% marketers, 40% suppliers. Major sectors of the marketers include consumer products (18% of overall membership), catalog and mail order (12%), financial services (almost 10%), nonprofits (9.5%), retailers (5%), magazines/ publishing (5%). Suppliers include, among others, agencies (10%), consultants (10%) and list companies (5%). In addition, the number of Internet service providers has doubled in membership.

The number of members from the nonprofit sector increased in July when the DMA bought the National Nonprofit Federation, a group of nonprofit fundraisers, and incorporated its members into the organization (rather than keeping the federation as a separate subsidiary).

Eustis, who joined the DMA six years ago after 27 years at Dun and Bradstreet, describes his job as “acquiring and keeping members.” The numbers show he’s been doing just that.

As it grows in size, the DMA’s membership has also been changing in character Direct marketers have always been a diverse lot. But as evidenced by the evolving membership of the Direct Marketing Association, they are becoming even more so.

“If you looked at us six years ago, you would certainly say we had many more traditional direct marketers,” says Peter Eustis, the DMA’s senior vice president of membership. “Of course, we still have those members – the catalogers, the mail order companies. But the membership is changing from what it was.”

Indeed, it is shifting because of the influx of two very different kinds of outfits: established companies that have not done a lot of direct marketing in the past and the new e-commerce marketers.

Eustis says that because so many more types of companies are getting into selling direct, they join the DMA with concerns about mailing and telemarketing issues. “People wouldn’t have thought five years ago that they were direct marketing companies,” she says. “Direct marketing is becoming mainstream.”

These new companies include pharmaceutical firms using DM as part of their direct-to-consumer efforts; newspapers using DM to build circulation; and consumer goods firms trying to drive brands.

Some of the new companies in the past five months include Springfield, IL’s State Journal-Register, Shaw’s Supermarkets, Starwood Hotel & Resorts, Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, Harley-Davidson and the Regional Water Authority of New Haven.

“Because they’re not traditional direct marketers, it’s changed the whole relationship,” says Eustis. “It used to be the new members were entrepreneurs. Now you’re getting a lot of companies that are experimenting with direct marketing as another way of doing business. As a result we have to provide a lot more services.”

The Internet companies are also coming on board to learn some tried-and-try DM techniques – especially now that a dose of reality has been jolted into the cyberworld.

Says Eustis: “The Internet companies that are surviving are hiring direct marketers, so a lot of times they’ll say, `I think we should get involved with the DMA.'”

And those dot-coms aren’t only coming into the DMA through its Internet subsidiaries – the Association for Interactive Media and the Internet Alliance. In the past year, over 150 Internet companies have joined the DMA proper.

H. Robert Wientzen, the DMA’s president and CEO, says that a year ago, he would have been surprised at how many dot-coms were joining the DMA itself, but not now. “The poor performance by so many B-to-C marketers drove them to learn more about direct marketing,” he says. “Many of the skills direct marketers have long had were the ones they needed to get.”

Also of note is how these new members are joining. For a year, companies have been able to sign up right from the DMA’s Web site and they’ve been doing that with gusto: one-third of the new members during this past year joined that way.

Wientzen says the more diverse membership is partly the result of the association’s marketing efforts in terms of attending trade shows in other industries and mailing to other segments. B-to-B companies are also becoming a more noticeable part of the membership.

Dot-coms aren’t the only companies that have new DM employees convincing them to become DMA members. Such was the case with when director of relationship marketing Ken Neher joined SmithKline Beecham Consumer Healthcare five years ago. “The DMA is a very important body because it helps define the ethics for the industry and its membership,” Neher says.

The association’s membership is also changing in size: it’s getting bigger. The last fiscal year (ended in June) was a banner one, with 900 new companies signing up. Eustis says membership has probably doubled in the past three years; in the past five, the number of domestic companies has shot up by 41%, from 2,700 to 3,800.

The DMA, with subsidiaries AIM and IA, now has more than 5,000 member companies, domestic and international (currently, 600 members are from outside the United States, spread across 52 countries). These include some big names: AT&T, IBM, Microsoft, the New York Times and Procter & Gamble.

“We’ve gone over the 5,000-member mark and that’s a watershed for us,” says Wientzen.

One thing hasn’t changed: the marketer/vendor breakdown of the membership. It’s still 60% marketers, 40% suppliers. Major sectors of the marketers include consumer products (18% of overall membership), catalog and mail order (12%), financial services (almost 10%), nonprofits (9.5%), retailers (5%), magazines/ publishing (5%). Suppliers include, among others, agencies (10%), consultants (10%) and list companies (5%). In addition, the number of Internet service providers has doubled in membership.

The number of members from the nonprofit sector increased in July when the DMA bought the National Nonprofit Federation, a group of nonprofit fundraisers, and incorporated its members into the organization (rather than keeping the federation as a separate subsidiary).

Eustis, who joined the DMA six years ago after 27 years at Dun and Bradstreet, describes his job as “acquiring and keeping members.” The numbers show he’s been doing just that.