Nov 16, 2016 | Data Cleansing, Goneaway Identification, Re-mover
If you knock at the front door of one of your customers you will know when they answer whether they are the person you are trying to reach, but how do you ascertain whether your direct mail communications are reaching the right person when you can’t visit each and every home you are contacting?
Thousands of people move home (in some cases leaving the country altogether) every year and this figure is increasing, but the lowest priority these people have is updating their contact details with every company they have ever done business with; updating address details with banks, credit card companies, utility suppliers, mobile phone providers, loyalty cards, pension providers, solicitors etc. can be a mammoth task alongside the general hassle of moving house. Perceived as an unimportant activity for a mover, it is unsurprising that customers fail to inform companies about a change of address.
The incoming tenant often has to deal with months of unwanted post addressed to people that have long since moved away, and many people throw this away instead of returning it to the original sender. Although a lot of direct mail is returned each year as a result of house moves and people wishing to unsubscribe from future mailings, there is a huge amount of direct mail that disappears into landfill, never reaching the intended recipient nor making its way back to the sender for removal. Further to this, many companies never action these returns, or take so long doing so that sending continues, despite having the information that some people have moved or do not wish to receive any further communications. This inaction on the part of the originating company can lead to negative perceptions of the business and its practices.
Research by The Software Bureau indicates that each piece of returned mail costs the originating company £4, yet many companies continue to print and send mail to these obsolete addresses, quickly amassing a huge bill that could be avoided through undertaking regular database cleansing. Estimates put a figure of 40% of returned mail being due to unsubscription requests, and 60% being due to goneaways. Printing and sending communications to addresses that are no longer related to a genuine customer is a waste of money and resources; funds and time that could be more efficiently assigned to attaining a cleaner and more reliable database.
One reason businesses do not remove goneaways from their databases is to avoid incurring the associated costs, but this is a short-sighted view as the costs of continuing to mail people who are not there will far outweigh that of keeping the database clean. Using a cleansing file like Re-mover means your database will be up to date to within one month of all house moves at any given time – that is much quicker than relying on new tenants to return the odd bit of unwanted post. If a direct mail campaign involves sending several iterations or reminders about a service, there is every chance that time and money has been invested in contacting a customer who has moved. If the new tenant then eventually returns all the unwanted mail you could be looking at a cost of £40 per record over a period of a few months – this adds up fast and cuts into the available marketing budget as well as skewing ROI figures.
Companies that regularly use Re-mover and other suppression files will see a much better return on investment from their campaigns, a lower overall campaign cost (due to reduced print and postage costs) and a much better reputation for not sending unwanted or irrelevant postal communications.
Nov 11, 2016 | Comment, National Deceased Register
Some marketers seem determined to make contact with the other side, offering credit cards, discounts and special offers to the deceased. It would be an incredible achievement on the part of the marketer to get any take up on the campaign from someone who is no longer living, so why do some companies not remove the deceased from their mailing lists?
There is a potential issue of fraud and identity theft here; reports of direct mail being sent to people who have died appear in the media with alarming regularity, and according to a study conducted by Wilmington Millennium with ex-offenders, 79% of these people believed that identity theft was an easy way to obtain cash fraudulently. Fraudsters intercept credit card offers and similar pieces of direct mail after checking obituaries or graveyard activity, and use these details to open credit accounts and run up a huge bill using the personal details of someone who has died. This is very distressing to the relatives of the deceased, as they are left to deal with the authorities alongside the bereavement process.
As well as the issue of criminal activity related to these erroneously sent communications, there is also the issue of negative impact on the reputation of a company that continues to mail out to the deceased. Elderly relatives that lived in a family home will have played a very important part in daily family life, and to be reminded of that loss with every piece of direct mail can be distressing for the family left behind. Dealing with unsubscribing from these companies’ mailing lists will not be a priority for the family, so the responsibility for managing the removal of the deceased from the mailing lists rests firmly with the marketer. When you consider that around two thirds of people would not consider dealing with a company that has sent direct mail to a deceased relative, it is even more important to get a removal process in place.
Companies whose products and services are aimed at the elderly have a much greater responsibility than most to get this right, as their database will have a higher proportion of deceased contacts (and goneaways where the elderly person has moved into a residential or nursing home) than most. Charities are especially susceptible to a high rate of deceased records due to the older average age of their donors, so proactively managing the suppression process and managing final communications can improve the brand image, whilst addressing the need for removing the deceased and goneaways from their databases. Charities can take the opportunity to pay tribute to a valuable donor; an action that can provide comfort for the relatives in a distressing time and potentially recruit new donors to continue the good work that was funded by the late donor. It is a sensitive issue, but when managed correctly can lead to more donors, and a positive reinforcement of the brand image.
Using up to date deceased contact lists is not an onerous task and the small effort required to make sure the database is cleansed against this list, far outweighs the potential negatives of leaving people on there that can no longer receive or read mail. With that in mind, can any organisation really afford to overlook such a simple, yet important component of data hygiene strategy?
Nov 8, 2016 | GDPR
With the looming introduction of the EU General Data Protection Regulation in 2018 there has never been a better time for marketers to improve their practices and work towards the industry standards by which all direct marketers will have to conduct business. GDPR represents the most significant overhaul of Data Protection legislation for over 25 years, it will require many organisations to completely reengineer core processes to become GDPR ready.
In this brave new world marketers will require opted-in permission from consumers to market to them and the old opt-out model will no longer apply. Penalties include staggering fines of up to up to 4% of global turnover.
The new opt-in permissions are likely to have a large impact on new customer acquisition as traditional data sources decrease in size and become costlier and legally complex. Maintaining permission to market to your existing customers will therefore be critical, as will retaining opt-in permission from multiple channels and keeping track of your customers as they move home to avoid diminishing returns from a continually shrinking database.
If a customer, who has previously opted in to receive postal communications, moves house and does not inform those companies who were sending mail, can that record still be considered as a strong opt-in? What steps can marketers take to ensure their campaign material still reaches the intended recipient? If the marketers can obtain the new address of an opted in customer then this can still be considered as a strong opt-in under current regulations, and there are existing products to provide marketers with this data. Using these products will reduce the proportion of direct mail that does not reach the customer, and improve the health of the database. It also increases the value of the database, as details are correct and up to date.
Using a goneaway suppression file such as Re-mover ensures that direct mail campaigns are not sent to addresses that an opted in customer has left, lowering the potential incidence of identity fraud. These actions lead to better compliance with data protection regulations and improve the reputation and image of the originating company as well as the direct mail sector over all. Re-mover is up to date with over 90% of house moves in the UK, 65% of which happen within the previous 30 days, making it the most current and reliable goneaway suppression file available.
Similarly, the National Deceased Register is equally current and provides reliable and accurate data on the recently deceased; it is most often cases of companies mailing people that have been dead for years that make the national press and contribute to the negative image of the direct mail sector, so with up-to-date suppression files available there is no excuse for marketers to bypass best practices. Ignoring the issues of identity fraud and crime that have been associated with credit and loan applications sent to those who are deceased or who have moved only furthers the impression that direct mailing companies are irresponsible and contravenes the incoming GDPR regulations with regard to an individual’s right to data rectification.
Suppression files notwithstanding, there has never been a more pressing time for businesses to look at their opt-in policies for marketing communications, and to ensure that any data processors they outsource to also adhere rigorously to the same standards. The pursuit of industry-wide compliance with opt-in policies, data protection regulations and the rules governing the processing and sale of personal information provided by customers is a journey that must be started very soon. Some companies will have more work to do in this area than others, and should commence the process of database maintenance as soon as possible. Ark Data are leading the way in accurate data suppression files that enable direct mailing contractors and companies managing large customer databases to meet the standards that the public deserve.
May 20, 2016 | Data Cleansing, Deceased Identification, Goneaway Identification, National Deceased Register, Re-mover
During my time in the direct marketing and data industry I’ve heard first hand from several companies who (in some cases proudly) claim to knowingly mail households where the customer has died or gone away. For some this is simply a matter of not wanting to spend budget on cleaning up their act, whilst for others their justification is based on response rates.
If response rates truly are that good one has to wonder why? Is it a factor of using inaccurate suppression data or (as some of the mailers claim) simply that the current occupier of the property will probably be a similar profile to the (now departed) customer and buy their products anyway?
Whatever the “justification” is it morally right to knowingly mail these records? The FCA, British Bankers Association and the ICO would not support or endorse these practices. It’s especially wrong when the communication contains sensitive personal information which can be used by those who are minded to commit fraud or other devious acts. This aside, the distress caused by continually mailing the relatives of a deceased loved one is something any marketing manager should be extremely wary of. The Daily Mail awaits it’s next victim ……..
For us the act of mailing deceased or gone away customers / prospects is inexcusable given the tools available to any company who wants to do the right thing. By carefully selecting the right suppression files (those with a proven accuracy , not just the same old files you might be familiar with), we can help businesses to de-risk their marketing activities and save them money. We’ve all seen for ourselves what happens when an industry turns a blind eye to best practice and compliance and leaves the decision making process to external 3rd parties – I’m sure all those in the charity sector would love to be able to turn the clock back and have another go at recruiting new donors – if they could. The same could yet happen to those businesses who still won’t do the right thing – it’s probably only a matter of time before they get their knuckles rapped.
So, for anyone who still isn’t convinced that suppressing deceased and gone away records is a good thing – please get in touch – I’d really love to have that debate with you.
Martin Jaggard
Managing Director
Mar 24, 2016 | Data Cleansing, Deceased Identification, National Deceased Register
The National Deceased Register has proven to deliver between 30% and 50% unique data when compared to other deceased suppression files available in the market. To give you some idea, a recent match to the customer base of a large and well known insurance company (who have been using other sources of deceased data for many years) revealed a further 135,000 deceased records on their customer database that they simply weren’t previously aware of, raising the following questions:-
- Can you afford to continue mailing people who are dead on your database? For the above client this cost equated to over £400,000 per annum, not an amount to be sniffed at
- What if just one of the relatives of those 135,000 people complains that you are continuing to mail their loved one long after they has passed away, causing them further upset. Can you afford that type of damage to your brand? Especially with a number of the mainstream press now highlighting the issue of mailing the deceased, this kind of pressure from the press has led UK banks to work harder to stop mailing the deceased as it’s a risk they can no longer afford to ignore
- If your customer mailings contain any amount of personal and confidential information you could well be gifting identity thieves the means to fraudulently steal from your customer and their relatives. It’s the largest and fastest growing crime in the UK not something any of us can afford
- What about your own customer analysis? All successfully businesses rely on the depth and quality of information contained within their customer base to make informed decisions and strategies to the benefit of their customers and themselves. So what if a large percentage of that customer base is dead or have moved – how does that affect your decision making?
Set against the relatively small cost of removing deceased and goneaways from your customer base is it really something that you can afford not to do and as The National Deceased Register contains so much unique data when compared to its 2 main competitors can you afford to ignore it and not run an evaluation of your own in order to find out for yourself?
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