Consumers Receptive to Direct Marketing

Eight of 10 consumers (79.6 percent) say they have made a purchase in the previous 12 months in response to direct marketing, according to the “Consumers’ Response to Direct Marketing: An 8 Part Series” study, writes MarketingCharts (via Circulation Management (CM) magazine).

The study is from the Direct Marketing Association and seeks to examine how consumers respond to direct marketing. Some of the DMA study findings (via CM):

• On average, consumers respond to direct marketing every 16.4 days.
• By channel: 48 percent of respondents say they made a purchase or donated via catalog, followed by internet search, 37 percent; direct mail, 28 percent; and newspapers, 17 percent.
• TV, radio and magazines are the least popular DM channels.
• Top reasons for parting with money: attractive price, 35 percent; customer loyalty, 16.3 percent; uniqueness, 11.1 percent; and special offers,10.4 percent.
• Top reasons for not parting with money: “not the right time,” 25 percent; not relevant, 23.6 percent; “already have enough,” 13 percent; and price, 6 percent.
• Some 70.2 percent of consumers said they were “privacy concerned,” but as a group they were more likely to respond to direct marketing than those who say they are “privacy unconcerned.”
• 53 percent of the “privacy concerned” say they made a catalog purchase, compared with 35 percent of the “privacy unconcerned.”

Marketers should therefore focus more on timing than privacy, according to Peter Johnson, VP, research and market intelligence, DMA. “Offering the products at the right time is the next frontier of relevance for marketers,” he is quoted by CM as saying.