Lucy Handley
Lucy Handley is a key member of the Marketing Week features team and has also worked in advertising agencies so can bring a unique perspective to client-agency relationships when writing on this topic.
Direct mail is driving me mad
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Since recently writing or editing a couple of features about direct mail and email and its growing popularity, several pieces of unwanted DM have dropped through my letterbox.
The brands include Volkswagen, Visit Scotland, children’s retailer Great Little Trading Company, the League Managers’ Association and gifts website Not on the High Street.
I don’t have children, I‘ve never been a football fan and I don’t need a car. Scotland I am interested in, but I’m already convinced that it’s a lovely place without having to ‘surprise’ myself and open the envelope.
Unwanted emails I can easily delete, send to junk mail or unsubscribe to. But post, especially if it is totally irrelevant, is so much more intrusive and much more of a waste. This time however, I’m not chucking it away, I’m emailing these brands to get them to take me off their mailing lists.
The League Managers’ Association replied to my email straight away as the letter they sent me had a direct contact. Great Little Trading Co replied within a day asking me to confirm my address so they could delete it from the system.
Not on the High Street hasn’t replied yet – I did buy a gift from it in the summer so I guess it’s natural it’d send me a catalogue – but I am usually vigilant in ticking the ‘no mailings’ box.
Visit Scotland has only had the weekend to get back to me so it’s unfair to expect a reply so soon.
So a reasonable response so far, even though some of them were initially those impersonal ‘thank you for your query, we are dealing with it’ replies.
However, the highest profile of those brands, VW, performs much less well. But I must come clean: its dealership mailing was an MOT offer and was actually sent to my late father rather than me.
This is surprising, given that two years ago, I had to go into the dealership to tell them, in person, that he had passed away.
So I found the dealership online and emailed the relevant contact. Whose email then bounced back. So I emailed the manager, who has not replied. I also emailed via the VW brand website and have had no acknowledgement.
Unfortunately, VW is the brand that has caused me the most pain already and has made it worse by not responding to my emails.
While it might do brilliant, creative advertising (and the DM piece did look pretty) the reality is that I am now dealing with a garage which is ignoring me and I’m not feeling great about the brand. When I do buy a car, a VW model is on my wish list, but I’m afraid my impression of the marque has been dented.
I appreciate that there are database-cleaning services which take into account those who’ve moved or passed away and that tidying up data lists can take a while, but two years?
Yes, marketers and customer services people will see my comments and add them to the other verbatim feedback they get. But I, like all those other people brands target, am a real, flesh and blood consumer, who just wants a bit of respect.
While I’m pleased for the marketing industry that DM seems to be doing a better job overall, according to research, I still think some brands need to clean up their databases and their acts.
Readers' comments (6)
Dave Gurney, Alchemetrics | Mon, 17 Oct 2011 4:28 pm
As Marketing Week reported last week, marketers are facing a ‘data deluge’. This is a challenge, but also a much needed catalyst, helping to drive the development of the tools needed to capture, harness and apply this consumer insight, in real-time.
In the case of direct marketing, it’s initially disappointing that this post could have been written five or even ten years ago. It describes an issue that has been prevalent in the DM industry, and which doesn’t seem to ever go away. Lucy’s right; there are DM centric solutions abound, and while I would suggest progress has been made in recent years, it’s frustrating that not every list out there is being managed correctly.
I would wager however, that as marketers get ever closer to a complete and comprehensive view of their customers, spurred on by the need to adapt to the information age, mistakes like these will start to become less frequent. After all, consumers are very quickly coming to expect an evolved and personal approach from brands. Those that don’t deliver will eventually be left behind.
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Tim Britt | Mon, 17 Oct 2011 5:03 pm
Hi Lucy,
I'd be interested to read your opinions on what form of direct marketing/advertising you consider to be suitable. I work in the packaging Industry and try my hardest never to e-mail or contact people I don't know or haven't met and recognise the intrusive nature of cold calling and therefore try my hardest to avoid this form of approach but what then? I generally deal in the form of recommendations and referrals which I find is always the best route so I understand your point in principle but where do you draw the line. TV advertising isn't directed at you as an individual but you can't write to the ad man and ask him to take your TV off the ad list but you can turn the tele off just like you can throw the leaflet away - where do you draw the line?
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Tom Sedita | Mon, 17 Oct 2011 9:59 pm
Lucy,
A simple sort through the mail and a determination of what is interesting and what should be recycled is a lot less demanding then the quest to contact the companies and get removed. This is of course my opinion and how I choose to handle the direct mail i receive. What I'am interested in knowing is what motivates you to take on this effort of removal? Why even bother? It obviously aggravates you on a deep level to prompt writing an article about direct mail driving you mad and trying to eradicate it from ever reaching you. I'm not being cynical, I wrote this comment to understand your rationale.
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Karen Pritchard, Marketing Director, Mortascreen | Wed, 19 Oct 2011 9:54 am
As Lucy correctly identifies you can have the best creative and the latest printing techniques on a direct mail campaign but ultimately you are only as good as your customer database. It is absolutely imperative that brands understand the importance of regular data hygiene and not forgetting deceased suppression. Receiving a piece of direct mail for a deceased family member and loved one can be heartbreaking but the brand damage can be enormous and long lasting.
The industry must continue to maintain and observe best practice procedures, which includes regular database management and responding to consumers requests when opting out of mailing lists. By working together we can make sure the DM industry acts responsibly and negative stories about poorly targeted campaigns become a thing of the past.
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Mike Fox, Director, UKChanges | Wed, 19 Oct 2011 3:04 pm
Companies that fail to clean their records prior to campaigns going live really have no excuses.
Online data cleaning tools are available 24/7 (disclosure - we provide such a service) and if marketers don't have time to process the data themselves, there are plenty of excellent bureaux out there who will do it for them (we also provide this service).
Campaigns that fail to use appropriate suppression run the risk of causing unnecessary distress and upset to friends and relatives who are left behind – as evidenced by Lucy’s experience.
Suppression records can be identified, flagged and removed for around the same cost as the postage for a single mailing – thereby permanently avoiding this potential upset and protecting the reputation of the brand.
With fast, simple-to-use online tools, it can take as little as two hours to process 1 million records against various deceased and gone-away files (finding new addresses for some of the movers too): so it is easy to slot this best practice process in to the campaign schedule at any point prior to production.
Unfortunately, in these times of austerity and cost cutting, good data cleansing and management practice more often fall victim to shrinking budgets than time constraints - but at what price?
Whilst VW, either the dealer or centrally (talk to us, we can offer a solution for both), may have saved approximately 40p on this campaign by not using deceased suppression, it is a short-term win - and there is a clear opportunity cost associated with the decision.
Certainly in this instance, Lucy has removed VW models from her list of potential new cars. When you add in parts, labour, service, future purchases based on good ownership experiences, positive word-of-mouth endorsement, etc – the money starts to add up to significant sums and this very soon begins to look like a short-term saving at the expense of a long-term loss.
Even then the costs are not over: quite apart from the loss of future revenue from Lucy, her poor brand experience has already been relayed here and will almost certainly be retold to friends and family, creating another unquantifiable expense to weigh against the 40p saving achieved.
It makes you wonder why any brand would ignore such an easy win, doesn’t it?
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Adam Cowlishaw | Mon, 7 Nov 2011 2:39 pm
Direct mailing in this age is far less effective when you compare it to the inbound marketing techniques which have a higher ROI and do little to erode customers' sense of loyalty to a brand. I work as a Search Marketing Consultant and our approach is all about offering the right products and information to those people who are actively searching for them. To me, this is a much more ethical way to market, because the commerical intent of the customer is preexisting.
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