Almost 60% of direct marketers surveyed have signed up for a do-not-call list, according to new research from Direct. In contrast, fewer than half of all U.S. households have signed on to either the Federal Trade Commission’s national DNC list or a state registry.
Among Direct’s readers, 63% of those employed by mixed-focus companies, which offer goods and services to both businesses and consumers, said they had enrolled, compared with 55% of consumer-focused and business-to-business concerns.
In fact, respondents whose firms were more bullish on direct marketing were more likely to be on some DNC list. Among those employed at companies that dedicate more than half of their marketing budgets to DM, 60% said they’d signed up, compared with 56% of those surveyed whose firms spend 49% or less of their money on direct efforts.
Among readers whose firms also belong to the Direct Marketing Association, nearly 60% said they asked to be put on the list, slightly more than the 58% of non-members who did so.
Respondents from smaller companies were also more likely to have registered. Nearly 61% of those with annual revenue below $10 million said they had, compared with 56% of those from larger organizations. This may reflect a higher number of home office respondents who use the household telephone line for business purposes and have a professional need to keep the lines clear.
Marketers were more likely to have signed on to a do-not-call list than to be a DMA member. Among those polled, just 32% indicated their company belonged to the organization. One-third of all respondents said they used outbound telemarketing.
Redirecting Resources
Among those using this channel, 20% said that, due to the new regulations, they would be moving more financial resources into direct mail. Sixteen percent said they would concentrate more on e-mail marketing, and 14% will focus more on Internet efforts. Four percent will spend more on DRTV. Six percent were going to convert seats in their call centers from outbound to inbound telemarketing. Slightly more than half didn’t anticipate a change in their allocations.
Among direct marketers that use outbound telemarketing, 38% say the new federal do-not-call list will have no effect at all on their activities, while another 24% anticipate minimal impact, according to the survey.
On the other end of the scale, 13% anticipate a significant disruption of their telemarketing efforts. Not surprisingly, business-to-business companies, which aren’t affected by the list unless they call home offices that have signed on to it, were a lot less concerned than either consumer marketers or companies that solicited both sectors.
DMA members were more likely to expect a significant impact to their business: twenty-one percent did so, compared with only 8% of non-members. Just over 55% of all DMA members who responded said it would have little effect, compared with 69% of non-members, likely reflecting members’ willingness to follow DMA guidelines on using it.
Just over a third of respondents that use telemarketing went out of their way to renew contact with customers so they’d fall under the
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