Last week on Print CEO there was an interesting discussion concerning the future of direct mail. This started with a post commenting upon a recent report released by Borrell Associates, a media research and consulting firm. This report projected a decline in direct mail spending from $49.7 billion in 2008 to $29.8 billion in 2013. Among the quotes within the report was the following, “the largest and least-read of all print media” and goes on to say, direct mail has begun spiralling into what we believe is a precipitous decline from which it will never fully recover.”

The report’s conclusion is there will be a switch to email marketing from direct mail, and much of this growth will be in local marketing. The study states, “we’re expecting local e-mail advertising to grow from $848 million in 2008, to $2 billion in 2013, as more small businesses abandon direct mail couponing and promotional offers and turn to a more measurable and less costly medium, e-mail.”

This report follows on a report by Winterberry Group that estimated that direct mail spending declined by 3% in 2008 and would fall by another 8 – 9% in 2009. More significantly, Winterberry Group believes that the changes now affecting direct mail are systemic, and not cyclical, in nature. In other words, things won’t go back to “normal” when the current recession ends. Winterberry Group contends that direct mail is changing from a “mass” to a highly “targeted” communications medium that will create the greatest value for marketers when it is used as one component of sophisticated, data-driven, multichannel marketing programs.