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
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