A new study from Victoria James Executive Search Inc. contains some good news for the list industry.
More than half of the DMers surveyed said they had expanded their list rental plans, with one-quarter holding steady. Another 58% say they will increase their list use during the next two quarters, with 24% toeing their current line.
Catalog and e-commerce companies were most likely to have boosted their rental activity, followed by financial services, publishing and retail marketers.
With good reason: Forty-two percent said their response rates have risen, and another 35% indicated they remained stable. Broken out by customers served, 83% of business-to-business marketers said their response rates had risen; 60% of consumer-focused marketers said the same.
This may be partly because the economic slowdown took a greater toll on corporate spending than it did on consumer spending: If response rates for B-to-B marketers are up recently, they likely were previously at lower levels, especially after Sept. 11.
In contrast, barely one in five respondents have cut back on their list use, and nearly the same amount will trim their rental activity through the end of the year.
Here, too, catalogers were ranked first, trailed by e-commerce firms, insurers, nonprofit organizations, publishers and travel/entertainment marketers.
The industry is tentative about renting e-mail lists. While 81% of all marketers want to append e-mail addresses to their files, 65% feel that the lists available for rental have more delivery problems than postal lists.
This may partly account for marketers’ seeming reluctance to embrace the new channel: Seventy-eight percent said e-mail accounted for less than 25% of their total direct marketing strategy.
But e-mail lists may benefit from the postal rate increase which went into effect June 30. Nearly seven in 10 respondents said the rate hike would have an impact on their plans, while just under 25% shrugged it off.
Asked about which channels they might embrace after the rates went up, 55% indicated e-mail, while 15% said they would switch to telemarketing and 18% to alternative media. Respondents also mentioned fax and joint venture and other endorsed mailings.
Chances are they will do so reluctantly. More than half said return on investment was stronger on postal mail campaigns, while 39% saw higher ROI on e-mail efforts.
Privacy laws have not had the same impact as rising postal rates. Only 26% of those surveyed said new privacy legislation had an effect on their list-based activity, compared with 57% that indicated it didn’t.
But protection of list assets is a concern. Thirty-nine percent said either they or their list managers had cut off a mailer from using their file due to suspicion of list piracy or fraud.
These self-policing efforts seem to work: Only 6% claimed an outsider had successfully obtained their list under false pretenses.
These results are based on the Victoria James VJ/CL Executive Survey, an opt-in online study of direct response marketers.
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