Product category:
Direct Mail Printing and Services
News Release from: Pitney Bowes | Subject: Direct mail systems
Edited by the Printingtalk Editorial
Team on 30 August 2006
European Retail Direct Mail Is The Most
Effective
Budgets are moving away from advertising and in to direct marketing.
Budgets are moving away from advertising and in to direct marketing As a result, we are all recipients of an increasing level of direct mail through the door, emails in the inbox, advertisements with a telephone response number and text messages on the mobile
This article was originally published on Printingtalk on 11 May 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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That is according to direct mailing systems supplier Pitney Bowes, which has posed a number of questions - which direct marketing do we think is effective and convincing, and what ends up in the bin? Who are the champions of direct marketing and who are the chumps? The company explained that direct marketing campaigns produced by the retail sector in Europe are felt to be the most convincing and effective, according to a research study commissioned by Pitney Bowes amongst consumers in Europe's five main economies.
Travel and holiday companies, charities and banks are the next most effective with their direct marketing campaigns, with credit card firms and insurers trailing in sixth and seventh place respectively, amongst the sectors studied.
The Pitney Bowes study, executed by international market research company Harris Interactive, covered consumer opinion in the UK, France, Italy Spain and Germany.
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Only Spain bucked the trend, according to Pitney Bowes, putting travel and holiday firms in the top slot for being convincing and effective - perhaps an endorsement of the importance and sophistication of the travel industry in Spain's economy.
The results of the study may also reflect consumer opinion as to which sectors they are more intrinsically interested in.
Financial services buying decisions, along with consumers' utilities supplier, are often regarded as a 'distress purchase' by consumers, whereas fun purchases (retail, travel) and those which touch our more principled nature (charity), are often regarded by people as more important in their lives.
Sector differences between countries are also revealing, said Pitney Bowes.
Reaction to direct marketing approaches from retailers are regarded as almost twice as effective in Italy and Germany than they are in the UK, France and Spain, possibly reflecting the importance that Italians and Germans put on their style and FMCG purchases.
The company believes that is an interesting observation on national stereotypes and competitive markets, which refines and changes received wisdom on retail purchasing patterns.
The research revealed that the UK is the obvious winner in terms of charitable direct marketing approaches, perhaps showing how competitive charitable fundraising is in the UK.
In Spain, consumers regard the direct marketing activities of one of their key national industries - travel and holidays - as being the top performer when it comes to direct marketing campaigns.
Utilities in France and Spain are seen as particularly dynamic in their direct marketing activity, reflecting the fact that utilities in those countries have not yet started to experience the rigours of deregulation but are, nevertheless, highly expansionist in overseas economies and in their own domestic environment.
The most surprising finding in the utilities sector is the low performance in the UK, where mature deregulation might have been expected to produce the kind of high quality output found in other competitive markets.
Pitney Bowes explained that it may be that UK utilities are still focusing on their infrastructure investments rather than directing spending in to core business and multi-product marketing at the moment.
French and Spanish banks are seen as most effective in their direct marketing, something which parallels the acquisitiveness of institutions from this sector, such as Banco Santander's acquisition of Abbey National and Credit Agricole buying Credit Lyonnais.
Effective customer communications are critical to realising value from acquisitions.
The survey revealed that British banks sit in the middle of the countries studied, probably because the UK banking industry has a very mature investment in CRM systems, making the sector highly developed but also highly competitive in its direct marketing activity.
Italian and German banks, by contrast, perform very poorly on the direct marketing front, something of a worry considering banking initiatives in both countries to extend their brand across a widening range of services.
However, in Pitney Bowes opinion, it is significant that both of those countries are over-banked (a high number of providers compared to the size of the population).
That kind of fragmentation robs players of the scale that encourages investment in sophisticated targeting and one-to-one marketing that is the hallmark of the sector in other countries.
Finally, effective and convincing direct marketing in non-banking financial services - credit card and general insurance - shows a very clear lead for the UK.
That is especially true for the credit card sector, where there has been a well-documented move from high-volume direct mail, in to much more targeted campaigns over the last two or three years.
Pitney Bowes added that the UK is also the most competitive market in Europe for general insurance, following the rise of direct insurers in the 1980s, and on-line insurance marketing in the 1990s.
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