Direct-Mail Spending Down in 2008 and Still Falling

He believes that shift, and a move toward more integrated multichannel direct marketing tactics, has benefitted a number of direct channels and service providers while crippling others. "If you talk to an agency that provides deep analytic services, they can't even serve all the orders they are getting," Mr. Ratan said. "But others, like list companies, are hurting because marketers are turning to their house files as opposed to list acquisition and renting."

Credit-card, loan cutbacks
Mr. Margulies said over 300 marketers, agencies and service providers were surveyed for the Winterberry report and that the decline in mail volume is due in large part to the cutbacks in two categories: credit card and mortgage and loans marketers. Mr. Margulies said credit card (-21.8%) and mortgage and loans (-38.8%) marketers, historically two of the biggest direct-mail practitioners, both had posted steep declines in the volume of direct mail they shipped in 2008.