85% of Direct Marketers Increasing Online Spending

Email to get most attention, yet supporting data analytics often ignored

Source: Alterian

Dave’s Comments (Digital Marketing Tutorial Blog): The beat goes on! Looks like online marketing will continue to steal the lion’s share of advertising/marketing spending increases in 2007. Even direct marketers, long known for their mailers and printed catalogs, are jumping on the online marketing bandwagon in a big way, especially when it comes to email marketing. Interestingly, especially to the folks at Alterian, the data analytics portion of this move to online marketing is NOT receiving its fair share of the increased spending, especially as it relates to having an integrated view of a company’s overall online/offline marketing efforts.

“What’s the direct marketing spending priority for 2007? It’s online activities, according to Alterian’s fourth transatlantic annual survey of more than 500 direct marketers, marketing services providers and agencies. Eighty-five percent of respondents expect their online direct marketing expenditures to increase in 2007. The spending projection is the largest expected increase since the Alterian Annual Survey began in 2003. Alterian (LSE: ALN) is the leading global provider of Analytics Led Integrated Marketing software.

While online direct marketing will receive the largest investment increase, 51 percent of survey respondents also plan to boost their offline direct marketing spend in 2007. When asked about specific channel investments, 81 percent plan to increase spending on email marketing, 50 percent say they will spend more on direct mail, and 45 percent will increase their budgets for personalized landing pages. Despite the strong spending indicators for both online and offline channels, 94 percent of respondents who said they will decrease offline spending said they will increase online spending.”

(Press Release no longer available)