The team of six direct marketers was offered alternative positions within the Telegraph Group but each has opted to take a voluntary redundancy package. Askold Jacura, the Telegraph Group's head of direct marketing, will leave at the end of this year.
In place of the DM department, the Telegraph has created two units: CRM and data. Nick White, senior account director at Claydon Heeley Jones Mason, will head the CRM function, reporting to Katie Vanneck, Telegraph Group marketing director.
Vanneck said the company was still committed to direct marketing. "The Telegraph has always been ahead of the game in terms of having more developed relationships with its customers," she said. "We have the most fantastic direct channel to over a third of our daily readership who are pre-paid subscribers, and this is about making sure they are rewarded."
She added that it was "too early" to discuss the specifics of any CRM scheme but vowed that the Telegraph would "leapfrog over all the traditional CRM programmes".
The data function is to be led by Ian Trudgett, senior manager, data and selections at HBOS, who will report direct to managing director John Allwood. The Telegraph has also commissioned Alchemetrics to create a single marketing database from its subscriber and prospect files.
A key challenge facing the Telegraph is to extend its appeal beyond the over-50s reader. Since June 2004 the paper's circulation has dropped by over 100,000 to below one million.
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