Digital Marketing Practices & Trends Report.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) released its new Digital Marketing Practices and Trends report which takes the pulse on digital and traditional marketing methods as they are implemented today. DMA partnered with David Shepard Associates, a database and interactive marketing consulting firm, on this report.

Digital media have grown rapidly, as highlighted by the report findings, which show that social networking sites are the most used media platform. However, many businesses still consider themselves operating in the learning, transitioning, and integrating phases. This report identifies just how marketers react to evolving opportunities concerning online/web channels; email; social media; mobile advertising; direct mail; catalogs; telemarketing; print; television; etc. The questions were designed to elicit insight into the use of digital and traditional media to implement customer and prospecting contact strategies – both as they are practiced today and as they are likely to evolve over the next year.

“DMA has always been a leader, putting forth best practices and benchmarks in marketing to help companies operate more efficiently,” said Yoram Wurmser, DMA research manager. “This new report extends this tradition with timely and compelling results that serve as a snapshot of what marketers are doing in the digital world. Take social media, for example, right now the majority are using general social networking sites like Facebook.”

“Two findings come through loud and clear from this report,” said George Orme from David Shepard Associates. “First, most marketers today are using digital media to both sell and nurture a stronger bond with their customers. But the study also underscored that very few companies have mastered the analytics and found ways to accurately measure the incremental effect of each media within a multi-media campaign.”

‘Not surprisingly, the study shows many companies are continually testing targeted messages across various media to find optimal cost efficiency and marketing effectiveness,” said Rus Rempala of David Shepard Associates. “We expect to see much more advanced strategic testing in the near future as more and more marketers navigate the multichannel digital age.”

Key Findings:

– Most marketers cite Brand Building (71 percent) as a main objective of their digital marketing.

– Direct mail still represents 17 percent of the overall marketing budget, which is larger than the share held by any other media.

– Roughly 35 percent of companies us CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) to evaluate online programs.

– The most frequent use of digital media for publishers is generating online sales.

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