VJESI DM Leadership Survey
Panel #1 - Business Expenditures*
By Victoria James

The VJESI Sr. Management Survey is designed to gather the collective wisdom of the direct marketing leadership in addressing business challenges in today's unprecedented environment. Our purpose is to assess and learn from current business conditions, in an effort to affect a more rewarding future for everyone.

Most Businesses Are Cutting Budgets Panel #1 was conducted between 9/25/2001 and 10/2/2001. Nearly 2/3rds (64.5%) of the respondents said they were experiencing budget cuts of more than 20% as a result of both the tragic events of 9/11 and the softer economy. Perhaps more surprising is that one in three are not cutting budgets.

CRM Continues to be Critical To Business Success The most telling result showed that direct marketers are a smart crowd and employ what we profess - that is that customer relationship management is a critical element to the success of business. A strong 63% said there were NO reduction in spending in customer relationship services…and 39% said that they had INCREASED spending in this arena.

Employees Are Important to Companies Success The survey further confirmed that direct marketing companies believe that their employees are an important element to their success. Eighty-one percent of the respondents had no decreases in employee incentive programs, and 87% said there were less than 20% to no layoffs in their company and 95% said there was NO reduction in employee benefits

Marketing Budges are Hit Marketing budgets are taking a hit during this period. Twenty-three percent have made no changes in their marketing budget while 37 percent have increased their budget and 42 percent have decreased their budget.

Are They Updating and Purchasing New Technology? While technology is critical to the direct marketing business lifeblood, only about 10 percent are increasing expenditures in updating and purchasing new technology. While nearly 42 percent have decreased expenditures in updating and purchasing new technology.

*Participants were invited to be part of the panel through an opt-in email, with a 27% response rate of VJESI DM Panel participants. Nearly 80 percent of the participants are in the Senior Management category - President, CEO/General Manager/ SVP and VP's, national in scope representing the myriad of companies that constitute the direct marketing community. Nearly 2/3^rd or 63 percent are responsible for marketing for their organization.

Respondants were invited to pose future questions to the VJESI DM Intelligence Panel. Almost 30% submitted question for future surveys. Questions were in the area of privacy issues, revenue increase tactics, branding, integrated marketing solutions and ecommerce successes.

If you want to opt-in and be part of one of the upcoming panels, send an email to vjames@victoriajames.com with OPT IN SURVEY YES in the subject line. A detailed version of the survey results are at survey1results.html.