In December, we asked our readers to participate in a direct mail study conducted by leading consulting and market research firm, InfoTrends, Inc. The Future of Direct Mail, Transaction and 'Transpromotional' Documents is designed to capture the current state and future of direct mail, transaction documents, and transpromotional documents.

　　To gain this understanding, InfoTrends surveyed various constituencies influencing the market--consumers, document owners, and print service providers. Consumers receive the bulk of direct mail and most transaction documents; their behavior and preferences should influence those who generate the mail. Document owners, who make decisions about how information is communicated, provide a view of current beliefs and planned changes. Print providers, who service this market in many ways, gate adoption as the services they offer impact the document owners.

　　The Future of Direct Mail, Transaction and 'Transpromotional' Documents is meant to provide statistically significant data to print providers, companies that sell printing, finishing, and mailing equipment; software providers, including the postal service; and businesses that provide alternate services such as electronic bill presentment. The findings will interest providers of Customer Relationship Mangement (CRM) tools, providers of paper and pre-printed forms, and those who sell printers to the consumer market. In addition, this study will interest enterprises that generate these types of documents.

　　The study focuses on customer-facing applications such as direct marketing, billing, and related issues such as customer support and fulfillment. Direct mail is a type of advertising medium in which messages are sent to target customers through the mail to elicit some action, such as purchasing, making a donation, or taking an action such as voting. The USPS study found that direct mail volume and revenue have been growing. On average, consumers received 9.07 pieces of direct mail a week, 9.52 billion direct mail pieces a month, and 114.25 billion pieces annually. At a cost of $.70 each, total cost would be $79.97 billion; at an average cost of $.53 each, total cost would be $61.1 billion. The continued growth of direct mail is contingent upon a good business climate, a solid ROI for direct mail expenditures, and no major change in legislation梥uch as do not mail.

　　The emergence of new applications and the desire for higher levels of personalization provide growth opportunities for print providers. When presented with examples of traditional statements and marketing inserts and then with a TransPromo document, 63 percent of consumers favored the TransPromo document.
In fact, in 2006 InfoTrends estimates the North American market for TransPromo printed in full digital color to be 1.62 billion impressions. They forecast this to grow to 21.72 billion impressions by 2010, representing a 91 percent CAGR over a four-year period. This growth is driven by better-valued digital printing equipment and continued market adoption.

　　Paper-based communications continue to enjoy a high preference among recipients and generators of documents. Despite the increased use of the Internet, paper has an enduring quality and its use will continue to grow as it relates to direct mail, and remain relatively stable for transaction documents.
Look for more in-depth coverage on this topic in the May/June issue of DPS. For more information on TransPromo documents, check out our recent article, Transactional Trends Driving Demand.