The social highlight of last year’s DMA fall conference, at least for me, was the Sunday morning brunch thrown by Alan Drey Co.
The minute I walked in I felt better than I did at any other time during the conference, because the room was filled with that special warmth you always find when Chicago DMers get together. Bob Stone was there, as were clients and friends like Gary Myer of Highlights for Children. Mr. Drey was going out as I was coming in.
All of which makes this a sad column to write. As Patty Odell reports on page 16, the venerable company has gone out of business. And the timing couldn’t have been worse, for the news broke just as List Vision was starting.
The official line is Drey could no longer make it in a period of declining mail volume and competition from other media, and that sounds plausible. But it raises a larger issue: Is this a portent for the whole list business, or is it simply an isolated event?
Like it or not, the list business is probably the best barometer of the overall health of direct marketing. When the DMA wanted to assess mail volume recently, it didn’t turn to statisticians but to list brokers and envelope manufacturers (the news was bad in both cases, according to DMA VP Jerry Cerasale).
The gloomy outlook was further documented by the DMA’s list usage survey (see page 48), and by anecdotal evidence like that offered at DIRECT’s annual List Roundtable.
But list people are a gritty bunch, and most of them will do well when mail volumes return at last.
For mailers, the issue is simple: They need to start prospecting again.
Otherwise, those customer files are going to evaporate right in front of their eyes.
As for list companies, they have several institutional problems to address.
Many of our Roundtable participants said that the best way to fight a downturn in mail volume is to diversify
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