The TPS, which is owned and operated by the DMA, commissioned Brainjuicer to question small and medium sized companies about their use of telemarketing services.
The research showed that 71% of SMEs which use telemarketing were aware of the legal requirement to screen their databases against the list of people who have registered with the TPS. However, this leaves an alarming number of companies that are not aware of the legal requirements or how to use the TPS to ensure they are not targeting people who have told the service they do not wish to be contacted.
Tessa Kelly, head of the Telephone Preference Service at the DMA, said: "Compliance with the TPS is generally very high, but we were concerned to see from our independent research that it is small businesses which seemed not to know how to make use of the TPS. There are now many screening services available to small companies, provided by the TPS directly, or by the many TPS subscribers."
The awareness campaign will involve articles and information leaflets in targeted magazines and newspapers and through trading standards other organisations across the UK.
The drive will provide practical advice about effective telemarketing practice, legal obligations and penalities for breaching legislation.
"To help ensure that consumers continue to be satisfied with how the TPS operates, we realised that we really needed to raise the profile amongst small business of the TPS products and advice available to them. We hope by educating the SME market about the TPS they can then access the most cost and time effective services available to help them operate within the law," said Kelly.
Of the SMEs questioned in the research 44% said they used telemarketing to drive sales and marketing opportunities with 46% targeting business customers, 34% consumers and 20% to both markets.
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