Only 14% of UK marketers are planning to increase their spend on direct mail this year, while 90% are planning to increase their spend on online direct marketing, according to new research.

This year's survey reveals that direct mail is set to be much more popular in North America than the UK: while 50% of US marketers overall plan to increase their spend on the medium, in the UK only 14% of marketers plan to do so. North American marketers are slightly less keen to increase online spending: overall, 85% of marketers plan to do so compared with 90% in the UK.

In the UK, the majority of marketers do not integrate email with other channels: 64% do not and 36% do. The picture in the US is very similar. Almost 40% of UK marketers reported difficulty integrating email marketing activity with the customer database.

Only 28% carry out full analysis of email campaigns and 72% apply basic or no analysis.
PCD have made huge strides over the past 12 months in developing data management techniques and integrated campaigns that embrace all the tools available.

We should continue to focus on the full mix rather than singling out the decline in direct mail, as long as the total budgets remain constant or increase. Budgets have always fluctuated depending on the media choice of the day, however one thing is for sure: new media is here to stay.