Let me give you an example. Last week, two identical mailshots landed on my doormat, both addressed to the previous owner of my house. Considering I've lived in my house for several years, it was glaringly obvious that the database was out of date. Unsurprisingly, neither mailing made it any further. As they weren't addressed to me, they were completely irrelevant.
I'm sorry to say that mailing goneaways is a common occurrence. Recent research by the Direct Mail Information Service has shown that one in every seven pieces of direct mail is addressed to people who have moved away. What's the point in that?
Not only does it waste valuable time and budget, it gives the recipient completely the wrong impression about the company sending the mailing. Why is it that direct marketers are so reluctant to get rid of out of date records when there is a simple and effective solution right under their nose -- suppression.
There are myriad solutions available to help mailers remove the names and addresses of goneaways and the deceased from their mailing files. However, they might argue that the ever increasing number of products coming onto the market is causing confusion as to which file does what and which file uses what data source, therefore the easiest option is to do nothing.
Earlier this year, an independent study into the suppression market was undertaken by UKChanges. Each file was scored against three main criteria -- data quality, accuracy and market coverage -- with the top scores for goneaways and deceaseds being awarded to NCOA, The Gone Away Suppression File and The Bereavement Register respectively.
It is intended that this benchmarking be done annually so, as more suppression files are launched, they too will become subject to independent scrutiny. So now there is really no excuse to do nothing.
Data integrity is absolutely fundamental to the industry. Continuing to use out of date or obsolete records is, to my mind, not only irresponsible but in breach of the Data Protection Act, which states that all data must be accurate and up to date.
Direct marketers need to know that the data available to them can be trusted. And for an industry that seems to be continually under the spotlight, it has never been more important to ensure that communications are more precisely targeted -- sending mailings to those that will respond and removing those that won't.
An example of this is mailing the deceased. If a person is dead, they're dead. It is ludicrous for any company to keep such customer records "just in case". To my knowledge, no one has, as yet, risen 'Carrie'-esque from the grave to respond to an offer no matter how well targeted it may have been were the recipient alive. It isn't rocket science. Deceaseds and goneaways are not going to respond therefore suppression should be a no-brainer.
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