The survey found that DM budgets were revised upward, reflecting not only higher spend due to greater sales and profits, but also a further diversion of spend away from mainstream media to direct marketing, although this was to a lesser extent than a year ago. Retail and industrial sectors saw the steepest declines, while the sectors showing the biggest rises were automotive and financial services.
The findings contrast with recent figures from the Advertising Association, which saw DM fall by 2.5% in real terms to 拢539m. That was seen as a rare slide for the DM industry, which has consistently shown rises while other areas of the industry have fallen back.
That slip in DM spend was seen as a reflection of the move by marketers to spend more money on newspaper and TV advertising to back their brands rather than on tactical DM campaigns.
Overall, there was a 6% rise in marketing budgets. It is the first time in the history of the survey that there has been a rise in the third quarter of the year, which is traditionally when end-of-year budgets are readjusted.
The figures, compiled by NTC Research on behalf of the IPA, show that the only area to see a decline in budgets was for media classified as "all other" in the survey, that is, PR, market research, sponsorship and conferences.
The biggest riser was internet marketing, up by 18.1%, putting it well ahead of all the other marketing activities monitored by the report.
Matt Atkinson, chairman of the IPA Direct Marketing Group and CEO of EHS Brann, said: "The latest revisions to direct marketing spend in the third-quarter 2004 report are very encouraging, they represent a continued and well-established trend in the growth and development of direct marketing.
"When you consider this represents a total increase in excess of 25% on spending in digital marketing, sales promotion and interactive marketing, it's clear that more and more clients are looking for more integrated use of these skills, and this supports the continued trend towards greater use of responsive accountable marketing activity."
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