The overall mailable donor list universe continued to see losses in 1H 2009, but the decline may be slowing.
As part two of my update on direct mail list universes (click here for part one), below is a look at nonprofit donor file trends through the first half of 2009. It’s no surprise that recession-wary consumers who have thought twice about heading out to the local mall have also thought twice about digging into their charitable pockets. So like nearly all consumer categories (merchandise, apparel, publishing), donor files collectively have continued to trend downwards.
In 2Q 2009, active donor files totaled 64 million names. Year-over-year, this represents a decline of 1.9 million (3%) from 2Q 2008, and a 4.2 million (6.2%) decrease since 2007. The quarterly trend offers slightly better news, as 2Q 2009 shows a smaller falloff than what was seen over the past few quarters.
As mentioned in my last post, ParadyszMatera’s Research & Analysis group recently released its MarketTrends reports for consumer marketers. Having highlighted some notable list universe shifts last time out, I thought it would be useful to take a look at trends in list rental cpms (cost per thousand) over the past two years.
A recent Metrics graph in The New York Times called