The report, which polled direct marketing agencies in 33 countries, found that 70% of companies still favoured traditional print delivery over digital campaigns despite the gains digital has made in recent years.
InterDirect Network said a significant shift from traditional print campaigns to electronic media was only likely to occur in Western Europe, while businesses in the Asian and emerging markets would continue to depend on mail marketing, which is expected to undergo a strong rise by 60% of respondents.
Conversely, 50% of agencies based in Central and Eastern Europe said they anticipated only a small increase in the amount of print mail fulfilment in the next five years.
The report's authors said all respondents surveyed said they had increased their digital marketing activity in the last 12 months, highlighting an industry-wide desire to explore new methods of marketing products.
Hans Christian Bjorkto, chairman of the InterDirect Network, said: "We have all seen the impact of digital channels on the DM market, but the results found that its proliferation is far from equal over the world with a fair size chunk of the globe still preferring to use traditional print over the more "sexy" electronic methods.
"Internationally, our survey revealed that there would be a strong increase in traditional print methods versus newer digital options over the coming five years."
The report, which was conducted over a two-year period, was conducted by InterDirect member agencies consisting of 12 direct marketing agencies in Western European countries, 15 in Central and Eastern Europe, and six countries in Asia and emerging markets.