We see three trends developing rapidly in the market and to some extent they are inter-related and we think will have a major impact in 2009:

Trend #1 “Monetising your data”

Companies spend a fortune buying data and virtually nothing looking after the data they have. Sure, they put it into incredibly expensive CRM systems or have – but they don’t actually look after it, it just sits there uncared for and eventually unused because it is too old and too inaccurate. That is changing as companies now increasingly recognize its true value.

Trend #2 “The Internet isn’t working”

Time was a few pounds spent with Google Adwords, a few well-placed banner ads and your new e-commerce business was up and running. Not now. Now you have to use off-line media to get people to go to your on-line presence. Expect to see ever more Direct Marketing directing people to the web. Even E-Bay is now using poster ads, for example.

Trend #3 “Back to Basics”

Many companies have spent fortunes on predictive models and variables from a wide range of vendors. But now more and more are recognizing that the marginal gains these provide are not worth the cost. Worse, predictive models do not work well in a recession because they are based on the previous non-recessionary behaviour. By the time the models get fixed, the recession will be over. What matters more is getting the basics right – good clean, consistent data is the key.

Put these three trends together and expect to see Direct Marketing spend increase as outbound volumes climb. But because budgets are under huge pressure certain areas of the industry are going to face big pricing issues. These are data, data variables and predictive modeling. At the same time budget will be released from on-line and into Direct Marketing as on-line effectiveness wanes still further. 2009 is back-to-basics, folks.