Direct marketing’s share of total US advertising spending will reach 54.3% for 2009, increasing by 1.6% over last year’s total, according to statistics released by the Direct Marketing Association for its DMA09 conference. Direct marketing ad spend will increase 2.7% next year, reaching $153.3 billion in total, according to the group’s predictions.
The DMA also forecasted that the percentage of total ad spend occupied by direct marketing will remain above 53% for the next five years.
Although direct marketing will gain a larger share of the total advertising spend this year, DM spending will decline 11.2% from 2008, according to the DMA. That decrease, however, is substantially less than the 14.2% fall that general advertising will suffer, according to the group.
The organization also predicted that DM-driven sales revenues will decrease by 10.9% for this year, dropping to $1.74 trillion from last year’s total of $1.95 trillion. Next year, however, sales generated by direct marketing will grow 3.5% to nearly $1.8 trillion, according to the report, which adds that such growth will occur in the financial services, retail, manufacturing and resources sectors.
The DMA also noted that DM employment will continue to shift from traditional areas to online and new media through the next year.
Interpublic Group agency Magna predicted this month that revenue for the owners of direct media, a group comprised of search engines, the US Postal Service and phone directories, among others, will rise 3.3% next year.
For the first six months of this year, US Web advertising revenues dropped 5.3% year-over-year, according to statistics from the Internet Advertising Bureau and Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
