New figures today revealed that the travel sector has experienced a 7.8 per cent increase in direct mail volumes.
During the second quarter this year, volumes rose to 52.04 million, up from 48.28 million in the same period in 2005, revealed Royal Mail.
These strong results, reported between April and June 2006, are indicative of the yearly focus on driving summer holiday package sales. Direct mail is increasingly being used to drive response to brand marketing campaigns, resulting in the uplift in targeted direct mail. For example Virgin Holidays uses direct mail as a key part of its brand response campaigns, to increase sales of its US and Caribbean holiday destinations.
Interestingly, there has also been a significant lift in volume of direct mail sent to the 55-64 age bracket. This is a result of the marketing community identifying the ‘grey market’ as a responsive and valuable target audience.
Catherine Campbell, of Royal Mail, said: “The travel and tourism sector is showing encouraging growth in direct mail volumes. The statistics are a great indicator of the effectiveness of the mail as a communication tool.
“The sector continues to recognise the benefits of using direct mail as a way to build their brand and create customer loyalty by educating their customers on their products and services, as well as to actually drive sales. Direct mail provides a cost effective way for the travel and tourism industry to communicate with existing and potential customers on a one-to-one level.”
Other sectors to perform well are the automotive industry with a year on year volume increase of 12.3 per cent to 12.32 million items, charities with an increased volume of 10.5 per cent to almost 97 million items, and the retail sector recording an uplift of 1.1 per cent.
The overall direct mail volumes during April – June 2006 have experienced a slight drop in comparison to the same period in 2005, as businesses across all sectors improve targeting by moving away from ‘blanket mailings’ towards greater segmentation of consumers. This enables them to send lower volume, more relevant campaigns to their prospects. As a result, direct mail volumes in general have fallen by 1.6 per cent from 1.329 billion in 2005 to 1.307 billion this year.