Study: Growth spurt for direct mail

In Germany, the focus is on direct mail. The first half of 2006 saw the advertising medium grow by 32.9 percent in terms of the number of advertisers. 9,781 advertisers have used direct mail so far in 2006, which is over 35 percent of all advertisers. Gross advertising expenditure, on the other hand, increased by only 2.1% compared to the previous year to EUR 1.5 million. The share of the overall advertising market now accounts for 12.9%. Direct mail is the fourth most important advertising medium after television, newspapers and consumer magazines.
According to the latest status report from Nielsen Media, the proportion of football-related direct mail was only 4.2%. On average, 17.3% of the media budget was spent on direct mail advertising - but only by companies that used this form of advertising. 54.6% of advertising mailings were addressed, 5.4% were partially addressed and 64.4% were unaddressed.

Letters accounted for 40.3% of mailings, catalogs for 25.8%, brochures for 23.3% and flyers for 9.6%, while postcards accounted for 0.9%. The mailing of product samples was used the least: only 0.1% of advertising expenditure was invested here.