A major census has revealed that the door drop channel is continuing to see recovery across Europe and the UK and it remains a highly effective tool for marketers
The European Letterbox Marketing Association (ELMA) has published its third pan-European census of door drop media covering 22 markets and 180m households. The research found that the door drop market in Europe continued to recover from the recession with an increase of 2.2 per cent to 115 billion items in 2012. However, pressure on costs resulted in media spend falling marginally to €3.9bn; a decrease of 0.7 per cent compared to 2011.
Croatia was the only country to see an increase in the average number of door drops from 7 to 8 per week. The large economies of France, Germany and UK (244m items) all increased use of door drop, balancing the stabilisation and slight decline of volumes in the CEE and Scandinavian markets. UK households receive 5 door drops per week.
The largest volumes by country in 2012 continued to be Germany (23,300,000,000 million), France (21,177,000,000 million), Italy (12,000,000,000 million) and The Netherlands (11,020,000,000 million). The UK is ranked fifth with 7,214,000,000.
In a new development for the ELMA census, it looked at spend on door drop as a percentage of total advertising spend. The Nordic region, on the whole, allocates more spending to door drops with Denmark at 15%, followed by Finland (11%), France (9.6%) and Norway (8.1%). The lowest advertising spend on door drops is in the UK (1.5%), followed by Poland (1.8%) and Germany (2.0%).
Households in The Netherlands continue a three year trend of receiving the highest number of door drop items in Europe, although this fell by one to 35. Considerable distance remains between the highest and lowest users of door drop with Irish and Romanian households continuing to receive two, despite media spend on the medium rising in Ireland in the past year. The average number of items received by households across Europe remains 12.
Commenting on the research findings, Mark Davies, ELMA president and managing director of TNT Post DoorDrop Media UK, said: “The ELMA census confirms that the door drop sector in Europe has recovered from the recession but is experiencing pressure on price despite a welcome increase in volume.
“Our new data highlighting spend on door drops as a percentage of total advertising spend is illuminating and shows that the sector has to work hard to make its argument for a fair share of the advertising budget.
“Recent research from Experian, where 52% of household decision makers said door drops were the most important source of research about their purchases, followed by the internet at 24%, shows that door drop remains an, if not the most, effective tool for marketeers. It is our job to re-educate marketeers across Europe of the effectiveness and cost benefit of using door drops.”
ELMA represents the leading Pan-European distributors of print media, such as leaflets, flyers, catalogues, brochures, free newspapers and product samples. More than 130,000 people work for the companies within ELMA of which the vast majority are distributors. The aim of the association is to guarantee quality standards of member operations and promote the door drop channel.