“The Place for Face-to-Face” was the tagline for the 85th Direct Marketing Association annual conference and exhibition, which landed at San Francisco’s Moscone Center on October 19 with its customary thunk of “telco-verified” telemarketing lists and scads of “permission-based email data.” But despite candid moments with Senator Joseph Lieberman (he blasted Bush and preened as a pro-business alternative for the White House in ’04), and a tête-à-tête with Postmaster General John E. Potter (his address was the craggily titled “A Critical Juncture for Crucial Partnership”), there was little doubt that at “the world’s largest gathering of direct and interactive marketers,” book publishers may as well be missing-in-action.
True, roving teams from Bookspan and continuity publisher International Masters were taking their usual reconnaissance flyovers, while government-giveaways guru (and Free Money author) Matthew Lesko could be found sashaying about in his daffy, question-mark covered suit. PT’s correspondent glumly reported sighting only one booth-inhabiting trade publisher, however — that being Publications International, which gave a big thumbs up for sales of its diabetes books (a hot topic for baby boomers with Type 2 diabetes) and its line of inspirational titles. “The days of this being a big show for book publishers,” our observer flatly declared, “are over.”
That might be a shame, because by some measures the direct marketplace actually showed a pulse this year. Anthrax jitters (remember those?) went the way of Cipro stockpiles as sales revenue from direct and interactive marketing in the US last year popped up 9% to $1.86 trillion, the DMA reported, and is expected to top $2 trillion this year. Moreover, the organization is betting that over the next five years direct marketing sales growth will outpace overall sales in the US by 3.5 percentage points — with industries such as health services, securities brokers, and — yes — electrical equipment purveyors leading the charge. Even plucking a silver lining from everyone’s dismally plummeting advertising budgets, the DMA’s press releases said that the inclement ad climate was driving dollars into direct marketing as a “cost effective, measurable way to boost sales.”
So much for the good news. DMA President and CEO H. Robert Wientzen quick-changed into his grim reaper’s getup to share results from the DMA’s new quarterly business review: the inaugural index found that, for the third quarter of 2002, DMA members reported a performance of 36 compared to what they had projected for the quarter — that’s 36 on a scale of 100. And among the group’s direct marketing users, 60% said their quarter was “somewhat” or “significantly worse” than they had projected. (The group had cheerier hopes for the fourth quarter, but still expected to spend less on direct mail.)
And that brings us to spam, which one study says now accounts for over a third of all email traffic on the Internet. Even though consumers are desperately banging on their delete keys, a DMA report on the “State of Postal and E-Mail Marketing” said that 71% of those surveyed indicated that they boosted the quantity of their marketing email, citing rising postal costs, among other factors. Email use was up even though 59% of email marketers said gross responses were flat from 2000 to 2001. (Snail mail response rates were even worse, with 53% reporting flat responses and 21% citing a decrease.) All of which was further fuel to the DMA’s “about-face decision” to support anti-spam legislation, which the group had once vehemently opposed. It’s too little too late, declared critics, who noted that 27 states now have do-not-call registries (a defensive DMA even rolled out its own do-not-call list for cell phones) with the backlash against telemarketing agents steadily mounting. So what’s enemy number one for direct marketers? State and federal privacy legislation that could put a national do-not-email list — and even a dreaded nationwide do-not-mail list — on the table. And if that ever comes to pass, expect plenty more disappearing acts at DMA.
