It has certainly been a hard time for cold outbound telemarketing. The rise of TPS, the large-scale rejection of poorly executed telemarketing and silent calls are consumer issues of unimaginable proportions.
Thankfully other areas are encouraging. Digital direct marketing continues to grow, email marketing has moved mainstream and mobile is becoming a more widely used DM tool, and will show the fastest rate of change over the next two years. The rise of the paid-for search market is, or will become, essential to DM practitioners' skills as list selection, DRTV or press ads.
We've also seen major changes in the mailing sector. Royal Mail's monopoly has ended, but we are still waiting for the regulator and the Treasury to resolve the inequalities of the VAT system as applied to new mail providers. Against this background the DMA has continued to lead in the protection and development of the industry, from training and hands-on workshops through to meetings with MPs and the continuing dialogue with key regulators. Whether the mailing sector can successfully shed the soubriquet "junk mail" is entirely in consumers' hands. If they perceive the content as junk they'll treat it as such. Perhaps the next greatest challenge is to ensure they don't.
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