Direct Marketing facts in the Health Industry.

Doctors, hospitals, health maintenance organizations, and medical equipment companies survive by acquiring and maintaining relationships with patients, members, and customers. To help them stay healthy, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) introduces its first-ever “Direct Marketing Facts and Figures in the Health Services Industry.”

According to Anna Chernis, DMA senior research manager, this 57-page report provides a comprehensive overview of the health services industry from three perspectives:

· Survey results from health services companies regarding marketing practices and response rates on marketing campaigns

· Economic data from DMA’s “The Power of Direct Marketing: 2007-2008 Edition” regarding advertising expenditures, sales, ROI, and employment

· A campaign case study from DMA’s 2007 International ECHO Awards

The report also contains nearly 30 graphs and charts that help readers benchmark their own direct marketing progress.

“This pioneering report is a valuable tool for multichannel direct marketers in the health services industry, because DMA found priceless facts specific to this vital American industry,” said Chernis. “For example, it found that 90 percent of direct marketing advertising investment is aimed at consumers and returns the same proportion of sales, but the business-to-business market has an even higher ROI.”

Chernis continued, “The importance of the online channels — Internet marketing and commercial email — will grow considerably during the next five years, with double-digit increases predicted for each year through 2012, both as promotional tools and as sources of sales. But the largest portion of spending and sales revenue still goes to offline channels, especially telephone marketing and direct mail.”

Other key findings from this report include:

· Health services companies spent $2.4 billion on direct marketing advertising in 2007, resulting in $28.7 billion in sales. The total ROI for each dollar spent was $11.86.

· By 2012, health services companies will spend $3.9 billion on direct marketing advertising and receive $45.8 billion, yielding a slightly reduced ROI of $11.74.

· Health services companies allocate a third of their advertising budget to direct marketing campaigns. Most of this budget is geared toward telephone marketing.

· By 2012, these companies will expend most of their advertising dollars on the Internet. Commercial email, for instance, is projected to grow by almost 25 percent each year from 2007 to 2012.

· Direct marketers in the health services industry overwhelming employ direct mail campaigns (89 percent). About 70 percent are multichannel campaigns.

· The primary purpose for health services websites is to provide information about company products and services.

· Direct mail response rates to existing customers averaged 3 percent during the past three years.

· Lead-generation campaigns accounted for nearly 72 percent of direct marketing-driven sales in 2007.

· Most direct marketing-driven sales are divided among three channels: telephone (32.7 percent), Internet (24.8 percent), and direct mail (23.9 percent).

For more information at http://www.the-dma.org/>