Direct Mail Drop

Spending dropped from $58.4 billion in 2007 to $56.7 billion in 2008.

Worse, Winterberry projects that direct mail spending will fall another 8% to 9% this year.

Mintel Comperemedia found that the volume of direct mail among the leading vertical industries fell an average of 12.1% in 2008.

“Direct mail volumes declined dramatically — even more precipitously than the falloff in spending, in fact — as mailers sought to integrate more precise targeting methodologies, production efficiencies and other value focused initiatives in an attempt to cut costs and preserve the economic return of their mail programs,” Winterberry analysts wrote in the report. “Direct mail has seen its influence as a high-volume, mass-oriented response driver all but vanish.”