Direct Marketers Earning Profits Online, Survey Says

Nearly 70 percent of direct marketers reported online profits this year,
compared to only 49 percent in 1999, according to a Thursday report from the
Direct Marketing Association.

The finding was based on research conducted for a recent DMA report entitled
“State of the Interactive eCommerce Marketing Industry.”

The research profiles how more than 400 companies involved in direct and
interactive marketing are making a profit on the Internet — and how high
that profit is.

“Web marketers today are placing greater emphasis on increasing the bottom
line,” said H. Robert Wientzen, president and chief executive officer of The
DMA, “and they’re turning to direct marketing techniques to make it happen.”

The DMA highlighted several other statistics from the its survey:


  • An overwhelming percentage (86 percent) of respondents expect
    interactive media will increase revenue over the next three years.

  • On average, companies spend more on online site development than for
    promotion of their Web site (a median of $60,000 for development vs. $50,000
    for promotion).


  • Web site marketers cite search engine positioning (66 percent) and e-mails
    to customers and site visitors (54 percent) as the top online promotion
    methods used to drive traffic to their Web sites.


  • The majority of respondents identified, the survey showed, viewed catalogs
    as the most effective and highly used traditional direct marketing technique
    to drive Web traffic.

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