INTOUCH: One-to-One Communications The Way Forward Survey Says

New Zealand businesses may be facing tough times, but marketers won’t be cutting their one-to-one communications spend, according to direct marketing study conducted by Nielsen and New Zealand Post.
NZ Post commissioned Nielsen Media Research to survey marketers on their opinions and experiences of direct and digital marketing and new media, including where they will be placing their spend in 2009.
The results overwhelmingly show an intention to maintain or increase email and mail spend over the next 12 months. However, new media such as blogs/vlogs, social networking, podcasting, in-game advertising and virtual-world advertising have yet to hit the radars of most respondents.
For customer retention, 55 percent of survey respondents said they plan to increase their addressed direct mail spend, with 32 percent planning to maintain current levels. Fifty-seven percent plan to increase their spend on email, with 30 percent planning to maintain.
When it comes to customer acquisition, 45 percent of respondents plan to increase email spend, with 40 percent planning to maintain. For addressed direct mail and customer acquisition, 32 percent plan to increase their spend and 48 percent plan to maintain it.
Respondents were also asked to rate each channel on overall effectiveness: for customer acquisition, addressed direct mail rates as most effective, closely followed by telemarketing (though this was much smaller sample size due to less participants using the channel), and email. For customer retention, telemarketing ranked most effective, followed by addressed direct mail and email.
Sonya Crosby, national manager for the Mail Marketing Service of New Zealand Post, says the research shows that New Zealand marketers are well aware of the importance of one-to-one communications in the current challenging business environment.
“Rather than speculating, we thought to ask top marketers responsible for advertising budgets where they will spend their money in 2009. It’s clear from their responses that effectiveness is driving media choice and that both email and mail have equal billing as an integrated media opportunity, rather than being siloed or substituted.”