ThinkNick

A mailing arrives from a company that wants to sell me B2B data.  Fair enough, except …

1. The design bears not the slightest resemblance to the company’s website

2. The imagery in the brochure is perfectly designed to cheapen and discredit the company’s business (see Wieden & Kennedy’s blog for more detail)

3. I get two copies, one for each of the Directors, which is fair enough; the second copy has someone else’s company name in the address.  Brilliant.

Jane Holmes, if you really are the head of this company, honestly, I can help.

I’m following a particular development in direct mail which could be very important to its future.  I’m talking to people about it, and trying to stay in touch with what’s happening.  That means I’m talking to other stakeholders too, and some of them might be people I would work with, or recommend to others.  One of those stakeholders has emailed me a few times in the last couple of months.  The last email was from a ‘business development manager’, who asks me “by return”, to indicate “whether I would be interested in a quotation…or would like to be removed from the mailing list”.

It must be nice in your job sir, where the world breaks so clearly into ‘those who would like to buy from me now’ and ‘everyone else that I can wave goodbye to forever’.

Picture: Binary Birds on Wires by Third This

Two pieces of news, next to each other in the same newsletter: one talks about a rise in the number of complaints from consumers about direct mail, and database companies; the other is the launch of a new data management service aimed at ‘data novices’. It’s worse than ironic. How do we get in front of the data novices to make sure they don’t create even more complaints from inappropriate, or even illegal use of data? The best service we can offer the novice is education and skill. It’s not just cheaper than a new database tool, it’s much more cost-effective, and a lot less risky.

picture: Andrew Currie

Time to go public on a private passion.

Good work is being done to improve direct mail’s image in the UK. Royal Mail have launched a ‘green’ version of postage for their wholesale clients. The Direct Marketing Assocation (DMA) has set up a Direct Marketing Commission to give the public better access to information and services. As part of both of these there is discussion about the correct use of suppression files, and even talk of how to ensure that data is processed correctly before it is used to create mailing campaigns.

However, there is one important part of this that is not yet being addressed. There is huge variation in the quality of data processing itself. It’s just not enough to say ‘the data has been deduplicated and suppressed’. I’ve seen the difference between some of the low-cost online deduplications, and the ‘proper’ kind, and it’s huge – it’s entirely possible to say you’ve processed your data, yet still mail thousands of duplicates, people who have opted out, or people who you know to have died.

There’s a job to be done to raise the awareness of this, and to get some form of recognition of the importance of the quality of data processing for direct mail. I’m not the only one who believes this, and we’re working on how to get it done. I’ll write more as this (long-term!) project develops.

A large mailing pack arrived this morning from the RSPCA, and it’s asking for money. I’m not a member, I’ve never given them anything, and it’s not even addressed to me. So it has all the hallmarks of ‘junk mail’. Except …

On the back, in reassuringly large type, it has the following message:

“This letter has cost just 11p to print and send to you: not everyone
will respond to it, but it is one of the best ways we have of finding new animal-lovers to help us. Don’t throw this away – please support the RSPCA.”

Please would every copywriter in the English language note the brilliant simplicity and importance of this message. Please would every client contemplating the use of unaddressed mail, take note, and incorporate similar concept in their own marketing.

Maybe there is hope after all for the idea of environmentally sustainable direct mail.

A very large and successful global organisation is wasting untold amounts of money, creating ill-will amongst its customers and prospects, and helping to perpetuate the bad news stories about poorly-targeted marketing. And it would be so easy to fix.

It’s good practice and common sense, when preparing a direct mail campaign, to check the mailing data against reliable suppression files to remove known goneaways and deceased records. There is a cost for running the suppressions, but it’s substantially less than the cost of producing the pack and then posting it unnecessarily.

In this case though, the marketing department does not hold the budget for postage. They are responsible for the creative and production costs, but not the cost of getting it to the consumer. If they run a suppression, then the cost comes off their marketing budget. So guess what, they don’t run suppressions, because it means they can ‘do more marketing’.

I hardly know where to begin.

They are deliberately sending out marketing communcations to some people who definitely don’t live there any more. They are perpetuating all the bad news stories about mailing dead people. They are wasting the company’s money and its reputation.

The company is getting exactly what it measures – more cost-effective campaigns … as long as you measure ‘cost-effectiveness’ as the cost of production, not cost of response, cost of reputation, or cost to the customer service centre of dealing with the fall-out from the distressed bereaved.

What sort of culture must there be in an organisation that prevents the marketing, data or customer service team from doing the right thing? What sort of message does this behaviour give to the rest of the business?

I wish I knew how to find the person in this organisation who has the authority to put it right.