Survey Responses Tell Best Media for Acquisition and Retention

In keeping with the theme of looking at best practices from other industries, I thought that the following survey results were helpful.

Target Marketing just reported the results for their 2008 annual Media Usage Forecast. The survey was based on responses from 340 marketing professionals in many industries.

Overall the survey showed, “Going into 2008, direct marketers expect to devote more money to acquisition, after a mostly equal focus on prospecting and retention in 2007. Looking back to last year’s survey results, this represents a more dramatic shift to new customer growth; respondents indicated a heavier dedication to retention activities in 2006 (53 percent).”[1]

I think this underlines the principle that you cannot solely retain your way to growth. Acquisition is needed.

Another interesting set of results from the report show which media had the best ROI for customer acquisition and for customer retention. As the chart below shows, direct mail won for customer acquisition and email for customer retention.

From my experience, in the association world, direct mail remains the single best media for acquiring new customers because it is is highly targeted, responses are measurable, and the volume is scalable. Email is advantageous for retention because you have an established opt-in relationship with the member.

Do these results hold true for you. Will you be doing more acquisition in 2008? Are you finding mail as the best ROI media for acquisition and email for retention?

[1] Target Marketing, March 2008, page 44.