Marketers do reach their targetsDate Submitted: 11/6/2006 9:29:29 AM

Ginger Stickel, like most Americans, has been getting a lot more junk mail. On a recent day, she received 37 pieces of mail, and 28 were junk, including a pitch for mail-order pizzas and a flier for a warehouse furniture sale. Surprisingly, she says she doesn't mind. "I would rather get a catalog over a call during dinner 10 times over," said Stickel, a mother of two in Greenwich, Conn. "I always open those letters, and sometimes they're useful."

Remember when the Internet and online marketing were going to finish off the direct-mail business? Well, it hasn't worked out that way.

Over the past year, marketers sent more than 114 billion pieces of direct mail -- catalogs, credit-card offers, coupons and the like -- a jump of roughly 15 percent from five years ago, according to the U.S. Postal Service. And in the past year, for the first time, the volume of bulk mail, which is all direct mail, exceeded first-class mail. Marketers are finding that a lot of people, like Stickel, prefer junk mail to spam and phone solicitations. And advertisers are finding that old-fashioned mailed ads work, particularly in combination with online offerings and Internet purchases.

Advertisers like it that mail ads, which do not get snagged in spam filters, can be aimed at just the right customers and be monitored for effectiveness. Those traits are important to companies as they slice and dice the American consumer into finer and finer categories. "As the world becomes more digital, there is a need for tangible experiences," said Rob Bagot, executive creative director at McCann Worldgroup San Francisco, a part of the Interpublic Group. "And there's nothing like a piece of paper."

Marketers are expected to spend $59.6 billion on direct mail this year, an increase of $15 billion since 2000 (about $10 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars), and up more than $4 billion in the last year, said Robert J. Coen, the director of forecasting for Universal McCann, an Interpublic agency. About $70 billion is being spent this year on television spots, with another $12 billion on Internet ads and $1.5 billion on marketing e-mail.

Direct mail also has received a lift from restrictions that began in 2003 on telemarketers, who are not permitted to phone people who join the national Do Not Call registry. True, a lot of direct mail is thrown out. Only about 2.15 percent of mailed ads lead to sales or responses from customers, according to the Direct Marketing Association, an industry group in New York.

But ad executives are happy to play this numbers game because it seems to be working.

"If it says, 'We'll save you money,' of course you're going to look at it," said Andrew Shivone, a high school teacher in San Antonio. "I pretty much throw them out, but I have no problem with getting it. They have those demographic lists, and it's funny to see what lists I get on." Retailers spend the most on direct mail; next are manufacturers, mostly advertising to businesses; and then service providers and banks, the Direct Marketing Association says.

Postal officials were worried that advertisers might move online, calling the threat "electronic erosion," said George T. Hurst, the postal service's brand manager for direct mail. But since 2000, direct mail has just gained speed.

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