Top 50 Mailers

Welcome to the brand new list of Target Marketing's Top 50 Mailers. For the first time, we are relying exclusively on data from our partner Who's Mailing What! in compiling this list, as well as the other lists in this article, combined with list management information provided by SRDS. Who's Mailing What! has compiled the most complete library of direct mail and email in the world, and has tracked mail for more than 25 years. Earlier this year, it relaunched on a state-of-the-art, fully searchable platform (see the Methodology factbox below for more information). Simply put, this year's list is more of a reflection of the average person's mailbox, because the overall mail collection stems from literal mailboxes in seeds across the U.S. The final ranking of the chart is now based on volume rather than company revenue, and is a more accurate reflection of what's dominating the mailstream. Want to see the full Top 50 Mailers of 2013? Download the complete list. The Makeup of the List In this case, we're looking at 2012 and early 2013, and right away you'll recognize some similarities to last year's Top 50 mailers, in the sense that financial service companies, nonprofits and big insurance all appear frequently in the list. (One category that also made a strong showing in 2012 was political fundraising mailings because of the presidential election, but we've removed that category because it's a one-out-of-four-year anomaly.) But, while a similar mix is evident, the weighting of each industry sector changed quite a bit, with financial services ranking more toward the top and nonprofits sliding back a bit. Only three financial mailers showed up in the 2012 Top 50 list, but now there are six. This is consistent with banks and credit card companies again opening the loaning floodgates. Nonprofits dropped from half the list—25 strong—to 11, yet that still represents 22 percent of the Top 50. It's important to note the numbers from the American Cancer Society—the second-ranked nonprofit mailer—are likely to take a dip in 2013, as it has largely ended its traditional direct mail acquisition program. Our sister publication, Fundraising Success, will be keeping tabs on how this strategy plays out. In addition, nonprofits suffered a drop in the list because of this year's inclusion of catalogs, which were examined last year for the first time in the Top Mailers research, but were not included in the Top 50 list. Catalogers made a big impact immediately on the list, as 12 are present. This now includes Oriental Trading Co., which was purchased by Berkshire Hathaway (i.e., Warren Buffett), and is a sign of his confidence in a business that still relies heavily on direct mail. There were two other significant shifts with major industries. Insurance companies made themselves known, going from a measly two mailers in 2012 to nine in 2013. With changes—either coming, or already here—in the health care laws in every state, more acquisition mail is going out the door. And telecom also fittingly asserted itself in 2013, with five major companies compared to only one (Sprint/Nextel) in the list last year. With the explosion of mobile phones, alongside continued cable TV growth and popular bundle packages, it's no surprise that prospects are wooed by different providers nearly every week. The largest drop by far among industries was with media/magazine publishers, as only The Wall Street Journal showed up in 2013 after 13 appeared in the 2012 list. In part, it's because parent companies were not calculated for this list, but it's also indicative of trouble in the publishing world—mergers, new acquisitions, budget cutbacks, magazines that closed (82 in 2012)—alongside a sizeable drop in the use of the magalog format to get new subscribers. The Moneymakers Going forward, no matter how much multichannel/integrated marketing will be a constant theme and reality, expect direct mail to continue to be featured as the "tree" of a campaign from which all the other branches extend. Why? Well, as you probably can guess, it's still the big money maker, and if a company's integrative marketing cards are played right, it'll continue to be the major driver of revenue along with email, social media, mobile and telemarketing. Don't believe me? Check out the "Statistical Fact Book 2013—The Definitive Source for Direct Marketing Benchmarks," released by the Direct Marketing Association earlier this year (bit.ly/DMAStats2013). In 2012, more marketing dough was spent on direct mail than any other channel by far: $51.1 million compared to $37 million on telemarketing (No. 2), $23 million on DRTV (No. 3), $15.6 million on search, etc. Email and mobile? Both less than $2 million. The projections for 2016 shift the story somewhat, but not necessarily in the way that most marketers would expect—in fact, spend in every channel is expected to increase. Direct mail spend is expected to go up to $57.6 million. Most importantly, which channels made the big money in 2012? In first place, direct mail wins again, earning $642.4 million (yes, that ROI is hard to beat). Next up is search at $350.2 million, and in third place, telemarketing surpasses DRTV (which drops to fifth at $147.6 million) and comes in at $305.1 million. In other words, any company worth its salt (and wanting to make bread) in 2013 needs to be a viable marketing presence in most of the above channels, if not all—but especially in direct mail. Top 10 Mailers Per Industry Sector Who's Mailing What! houses more than 200 categories of marketing mail and email, including the following seven major industry sectors. After selecting one of these sectors, the database tool then allows you to dig deeper by choosing numerous direct mail or email filters. Below, you'll see the results of examining certain direct mail filters for the following industries. Top 10 Catalogs The presence of catalogs grew in the mailstream by 7 percent, and now takes up nearly a quarter of the mailstream (23.5 percent). So, yes, so much for the contention that catalogs are dead and that the Web can do it all—just don't tell that to online retailers. 1. L.L.Bean 2. Lands' End 3. Oriental Trading Company 4. Daedalus Books & Music 5. Athleta Corp. 6. Vermont Country Store 7. Pottery Barn 8. Home Decorators Collection 9. J. Jill 10. Talbots Top 10 Financial Services The presence of financial services in the mailstream dropped by nearly 3 percentage points, and now takes up 7.3 percent of the mailstream. Alongside that drop, fewer controls were sent out (33 percent of financial services mail, compared with 36 percent previously), and far fewer premiums were used to entice new customers (36 percent of financial services mail compared with 44 percent the year before). That being said, there was a huge upsurge in the use of personalization, as 80 percent of financial services mail was personalized—a 16 percent increase. 1. American Express Co. 2. Chase Manhattan Bank 3. Citibank 4. Capital One 5. Discover Financial Services 6. Bank of America 7. TD Bank N.A. 8. Wells Fargo & Co. 9. ING Direct USA 10. Barclays Bank Delaware Top 10 Insurance Insurance mail grew in the mailstream, and now sits at 6.6 percent of all mail, an 8 percent increase. Control mailings also went out more frequently, as these repeat mailings were used 43 percent of the time compared with 40 percent the year before. Personalized mail also rose by a couple of percentage points, to 74 percent (yes, nearly three-fourths of insurance mail is now personalized).What went down? The self-mailer format was used in only 20 percent of insurance mail (an 11 percent drop); premium usage also decreased to a measly 3.5 percent of insurance mail (a 49 percent plunge). 1. GEICO Direct 2. State Farm Insurance 3. Allstate Insurance Company 4. UnitedHealthcare 5. Travelers Property Casualty Corp. 6. New York Life Insurance Co. 7. Chartis 8. Globe Life and Accident Insurance Co. 9. 21st Century Insurance Group 10. Liberty Mutual Insurance Top 10 Nonprofit Nonprofits keep chugging along, as they grew in the mailstream by 7 percent, and now take up a dominant 27 percent of the mailstream. Otherwise, the strategy and tactics didn't change much, with both years registering the same percentage of control mailings (45 percent), personalization (58 percent) and self-mailer format usage (6 percent). The only drop seen was with premiums, which dropped by 6 percent—to only 16.4 percent of nonprofit mail (a surprisingly low number for this popular tactic). 1. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASCPA) 2. American Cancer Society 3. Amnesty International USA 4. Alzheimer's Assocation 5. March of Dimes 6. Special Olympics 7. American Diabetes Association 8. Planned Parenthood 9. The Humane Society of the United States 10. CARE USA Top 10 Publishing As discussed in the main article, publishers have been hard hit, and that reality is reflected in the decline in volume—now, under 8 percent of the mailstream is taken up by publishing mail (a drop of 8 percent, as well). But that doesn't mean its direct mail marketers have given up hope. Quite the contrary, as control mailings went up by 4 percent (to 46 percent), personalization by 20 percent (to 43 percent!) and premiums even increased by 10 percent (to 42 percent). 1. Wall Street Journal 2. Sports Illustrated 3. Bloomberg Businessweek 4. Money Magazine 5. Nutrition Action Healthletter 6. TIME Magazine 7. The Economist 8. The New Yorker 9. Consumer Reports 10. Forbes Magazine Top 10 Telecom/Technology Telecom is a relatively small but consistent part of the mailstream, sitting at 5 percent of total mail. Personalization also remained steady at 34 percent of telecom mail, while premium usage dropped (which appears to be a theme) by a whopping 41 percent (to a miniscule 14 percent of telecom efforts). Control mailings went up a couple of percentage points to 22 percent of telecom mail, and the self-mailer format was used more often (by 43 percent of telecom effort, a growth of 5 percent). 1. Verizon Communications 2. Comcast 3. AT&T Communications 4. CenturyLink 5. Dell 6. Cox Communications 7. DirecTV 8. Google 9. RCN 10. Sprint/Nextel Top 10 Travel The smallest industry sector of the seven examined here, travel mailings also remain consistent from year to year—generally hovering around 3 percent of the mailstream. Control mailings (6 percent) and personalization (25 percent) also stay steady. Otherwise, premiums plummeted to only 8 percent of travel efforts (a 44 percent drop) while the self-mail format took off to 80 percent of travel mail (a 9 percent increase). 1. Crystal Cruises 2. Princess Cruises 3. Viking River Cruises 4. AAA 5. Holland America Line 6. Riviera Hotel & Casino 7. Norwegian Cruise Line 8. Marriott Hotel and Resorts 9. American Cruise Lines 10. United Airlines Ethan Boldt is the chief content officer of Direct Marketing IQ, which provides direct marketing resources, such as Who's Mailing What! and the Direct Marketing IQ Bookstore. Reach him at eboldt@napco.com.

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Top 50 Mailers

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