Search results matching tag 'DMA'

Brokers Done to a T

1271576 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:22:00 GMT

Shock, horror...someone has been selling mobile contract data, allegedly owned by T Mobile, onto other network providers. Brokers, those despicable middle-men working in the dark shadows of the marketing world, are implicated in the scandal. Poor T Mobile customers have been 'cold-called' (a phrase spoken with unmitigated disdain by the news reporter I listened too) around the time that their contracts came up for renewal.

The implied 'crime' was that this data is private, and that the people cold-called did not give their permission for marketing calls. This is of course possibly true, but I doubt it. If T Mobile have not covered themselves in the small print somewhere, I would be most surprised, because data is an asset, and everyone should give themselves the scope to leverage that asset if they feel the need. I would imagine the brokers concerned, whoever they may be, would have made some sort of check, because otherwise they are cretins of the first order.

Every broker I have ever worked with, when faced with data such as this, would have asked several questions.

1) Who owns the data?

2) Is it opt-in data or opt-out?

3) What restrictions are imposed on selling it?

The third question is probably the interesting one. If this data belongs to T Mobile, why would they want to sell it to their competitors? Either they are so desperate for cash that they have to give customers away to get it, or the person offering the data is pulling a fast one. In my experience, when data like this becomes available, the data owner is very careful to make sure their competitors don't get it. They want to sweat their data asset a bit, to complimentary businesses, but they are not looking to shoot themselves in the foot.

An unscrupulous broker may not have questioned the golden egg falling in his lap. Make no mistake about it, this sort of data is like winning the lottery. Call centres are desperate for warm data. Big money would have changed hands for this data. I have not seen any comments from T Mobile yet, so we cannot know whether this was an officially sanctioned data sale, or a CD walking out the door in someone's pocket, but my concern is that, yet again, the data industry looks like a bunch of cowboys.

When this story hit the fan, I would have hoped for a response from the data owner pointing out that they had every right to sell it, because they did the opt-in/opt-out process properly, taking the wind out of the press furore over unsolicited calling. They might have had some uncomfortable questions to answer about why yhey sold their own customer database, but it would have been chip paper tomorrow...sorry, recycling.

This is a good chance for the DMA to make the case for using professional brokers. I suspect such a person was not involved in this instance. I certainly hope not.

Data Virgins

1271576 — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:44:00 GMT

Two recent news items have got me thinking this week. Firstly, the collapse of the infamous mobile telephone directory, using bought in data, and secondly the ASA rapping Virgin Media over the fingers for not using goneaway suppression. Both cases represent a certain naivety on the part of both organisations, albeit from rather different directions.

Just because data exists, it does not mean that we have a God-given right to use it. Mobile data is on the market from a variety of sources, but none of the people who own those numbers ticked a box saying they were prepared to appear in a directory. The most they did was agree to receive some unspecified third party communications as they signed up for whatever they signed up for. So, it was no particular surprise to me that many of them got rather cheesed off when the directory hit the headlines.

The trouble is, it seemed to be a surprise to the business concerned.

The Virgin case is slightly different, but it hits the same spot. They have data. Lots of it. They are one of the largest mailers in the country, and, as a customer, I recieve a lot of it. It is mostly tosh, and none of it has managed to explain to me how I can improve the service they provide, or get more out of it. In fact, the one thing I want them to tell me about, they have not even mentioned yet. As an XL customer (I believe this refers to the TV package I am on, rather than my girth) I used to receive the Seranta sports channels. I get Sky Sports through Virgin, and Setanta came 'free' out of the blue. Now it is gone. Am I going to receive the new ESPN channel free as well? Frankly, despite regular communication about my bill being ready for inspection, or other such fascinating missives, I have no idea. My son would like to know. Richard, are you listening out there?

However, I digress. Not using suppression is a cost call.You weigh the few annoyed recipients who can be bother to complain against the cost of buying the suppression, or doing the administration on your own goneaways. Naive, again. Suppression is not cheap, but annoying people is never sensible. Bad press like this is damaging. Not Gerald Ratner damaging, I will admit, but still a black mark.

But I fear this is symtomatic of an attitude to data prevelent in the industry. No one seems to care about the state of the data, as long as enough targets are reached. The objectives may be reached, within budget, but what harm is done to the brand around the edges?

Technology is the Fox that will kill the Golden Goose

1271576 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:44:00 GMT

All industries evolve. Things change, develop, improve. Direct Marketing is no different to any other sector, and the major change of the last ten years has been the growth of information technology. Is this a good thing?

For me, the jury is still out. The first mailshot I organised, circa 1985, involved buying some labels, writing a letter, getting it printed and putting it through a franking machine. Post was king in those days. It seemed more worthy than other direct channels, and certainly more controllable. It required thought, and took time. Nowadays, on a bais level, armed with a few email addresses, you can whack out the same thing in a matter of minutes.

B2B direct marketing is not always massive. Most businesses are small, and most mailshots are in the hundreds, not the thousands. Of course there are big mailings, but there are not many companies that do things on a large scale. The temptation to DIY, on the cheap, has resulted in a commoditisation of the market. Marketing 'departments' are expected to achieve big things from their desktops, almost instantly. A database is no longer a difficult thing to build. Email addresses can easily be collected and stored, DIY style. And using them is so easy. This ought to be a good thing, but I am afraid it is not.

You can buy email addresses for peanuts. No one seems to worry too much about what they are, or who is going to open them. My inbox is full of all sorts, from the quick and dirty to the expensive and sometimes misguided. The science of direct mail has been transformed by the technology into a hopeless free-for-all. We all talk about web sites as the shop window, and making everything interactive, but the interaction is often not very satisfying.

I saw a job being advertised this morning for a Social Media Marketer. The new holy grail, I suppose. We are leaping on the next big thing before we have really conquered the last one. We have not used the new technology well. We have managed to discredit and marginalise what we now think of as snail mail. It is almost an irrelevance today...still there, but somehow old-fashioned and comparitively expensive.

In this recession, data quality will suffer everywhere. It was not great to start with to be honest, but there will be next to no investment in it at the moment. I feel a bit like John Major. We need to get back to basics. Good data, good creative input, clear objectives and professional execution. If not, in another two years, we will all be Twittering around like lost souls, wondering how life got so complicated, when really DM is simple.

List Broking in the News

1271576 — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:02:00 GMT

Since the kerfuffle about the mobile telephone directory, list broking is in the news. In the Daily Mail, the term is used with obvious distaste, as if the lists of numbers supplied to the company launching the directory were somehow unclean. The tone suggests dodgy deals done in shady corners, with reams of soiled paper appearing from under raincoats, and changing hands for bundles of used twenties.

I have my own concerns about the directory itself, but it is unfair to paint the list broking profession as the evil conduit in this project. Brokers simply put buyers and sellers together. The good list broker will understand the clients requirements, and suggest the best possible data, earning a cut out of the deal from the data supplier. I just hope the brokers concerned in this bit of business did their homework and thought about the possible consequences. Ditto the data suppliers.

Mobile numbers are required on all sorts of forms and applications these days. Usuually, if you look close enough, there is an opt out from direct marketing activity. But...is this direct marketing activity? As a directory owner, you could make a case for providing a service. The landline telephone directories operate on an opt-out basis - the only way to keep yourself out of them is to go ex-directory (and I am not sure that is much use anymore). So, is this any different?

Personally, I believe it is. As a list broker, you should look beyond the quick sale, and think of the consequences for the data supplier, and the industry beyond. The legality of the directory is being questioned, and consumer reaction to it is not positive. This may make mobile data harder to collect in the future.

This industry cannot help shooting itself in the foot

1271576 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:20:00 GMT

Good grief, when are we ever going to learn? Your starter for ten, why is the direct marketing industry hated by the consumer? Because we have allowed their data to be treated with disdain and disrespect, that's why.

Spam, junk, confetti tactics, poor targeting...you name it, and someone calling themselves a DM professional has done it. So, in the middle of this wasteland of a recession, why not have a go at winding them up all over again?

Creating a mobile telephone directory is such a bad idea. No one, as far as I am aware, wants to be in it, so the company concerned has bought them. Some mysterious broker had one good sales month, and can now say goodbye to his database forever, I suspect.

Mobiles are personal. We take them everywhere, and as more and more nifty new handsets come out, with zillions of new apps (See, I am partially with it, chaps), we are taking out contracts and tying ourselves to our numbers more than ever before. The last thing we want is to feel that our numbers are going to be targeted willy-nilly by people we have not given our number too. Email spam is annoying but quickly deleteable. The mobile going off with unwanted calls or texts in the middle of a film, or in a restaurant, or whilst we are asleep, is going to really annoy people.

No one wants this directory. I doubt many people will use it. But with the headlines back in the Daily Mail, data and the use of data is back in the spotlight. Nice going people.

This industry does not need policing...it needs culling...badly.

Thinking outside the (Mail)box

1271576 — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:38:00 GMT

Quite a hullabaloo about our Postal Service, isn't there? Mandy wants to sell bits off to fund a huge pension gap, and maintain current service levels, and the Tories support him...unlike a sizeable number of Labour MoP! But why isn't anyone asking (and then answering) the important questions?

Firstly, why are we trying to protect something we don't need anymore? A daily postal service to every nook and cranny of the country is an anachronism these days. Around a third of our post is direct marketing...at the very least. Not necessarily time sensitive. Then there are all the bills, another sizeable chunk. As long as they are sent out in good time, no time sensitivity there. Birthday and Christmas cards take up the next big chunk, and if people knew it might take, say, a week to arrive, they could post it earlier. We do not need daily postal deliveries, just a reliable, regular service. How about three times a week in built-up areas, and twice a week in rural ones? Can anyone honestly tell me it would matter one jot?

Secondly, think about email. It is called electronic mail, because that is what it was intended to be...mail. The trouble is we have let it grow into something else, and something not necessarily desirable. Sometime you have to sit back and start with a blank piece of paper, and ask yourself what do we want email to be? My answer is secure, to the individual and the receiver. Because it is given away free, more or less, we treat it as almost unimportant, and suffer spam, phishing and all other sorts of missuse. For goodness sake, that x you just sent your partner by text on Valentines Day costs what? 10p? We put up with that, in fact we lap it up. So here is my bright idea to save the Royal Mail.

Having reduced snail mail deliveries and saved millions, reinvest in a server farm and offer each citizen of these British Isles a secure, personalised electronic mail address, tied to their postal address. RM should take the responsibility of linking the two, and providing secure access, possibly by NI number coupled with a personal password. The idea would be to make this good enough to be legally binding as an electronic signature. Anyone moving house would update RM in the same way as they do now, and their email address would move with them. And...here's the good bit, Mandy, if you are reading this...RM charges a penny, or even a fraction of a penny, for delivery...an electronic stamp. Bingo, a profitable mail service (without even going into the data sales aspect to a hungry marketing industry).

Obviously, we would all have to treat these addresses differently. No more wacking it on Facebook and then being surprised when you are invited to enter into a Nigerian lottery, or buy your weight in penis enhancing drugs...but that would be a good thing. It would become grown up email, for communicating with your bank, or receiving electronic bills (Yes Mandy, it's green too!).

Why should we pay for what we currently get for 'free'? Well, because nothing is free. Facebook, Google and the rest have tremendous power, and earning potential, because they are sucking up data and selling it to the highest bidders. I would rather RM did that, on balance, despite the fear that someone might *** it up.

Anyway, thoughts please?

Ethical self regulation, before it's too late...

2454396 — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:31:00 GMT

I'm increasingly concerned about privacy, it seems technology has advanced to the point where it's all too easy to breach fundamental rights of personal confidentiality. Since my last blog post I've been working with a number of clients and partners that want to look further into behavioral tracking and social media monitoring.

In genetics: cloning, embryo screening and fetal research are carefully monitored by committees to avoid lasting damage or unethical practices. So when marketing technology gets to the point where companies can effectively follow their customers and prospects around, even rifle through their garbage, I think that it is time for some self regulation before the law makers take a heavy handed approach and stop even reasonable behaviors in order to protect the populous.

Here's the problem, this is all just data stored on computers and fundamentally necessary to maintain the Internet and Web 2.0 practices. We blog in public, my Facebook page is public, my tweets are public and has to receive all of the searches I type in while my ISP must provide me with access to the web pages I want to view. Computers are all too good as processing vast volumes of information, mining that data and providing insights - the technology is right there. The question is: "Should we do it?"

I believe it's time that some industry bodies created a commission to review and set guidelines on best practice - we need to debate these things, set guidelines and publicly identify bad practices before they become the breaking news on Twitter. Government may have to legislate to protect personal information, the data protection act may need to be modified or clarified to include information derived from publicly available sources - though that itself is a minefield. If government is to legislate I'd rather it was informed by a well versed body that has considered the position in advance.

I abhor the idea that I might lead a client into a strategy that would cause public outcry over privacy invasion - but like the geneticists my problem solving left brain quickly spots opportunities to capture more information and provide more insights. I don't believe that this is something I should make the call on alone and indeed the fears over privacy invasion are causing lots of companies to ignore possibilities that would be perfectly acceptable to the masses.

In the first instance the DMA would seem to be an ideal body to form such a commission, they provide an interpretation of the Data Protection Act for marketers and have a good understanding of privacy issues.

I public profile information actually personal data? Do you have a privacy strategy? Does it make you competitive or uncompetitive? It's high time for a debate...

Direct Disasters

1271576 — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:18:00 GMT

I have always believed in the direct approach, and that public relations face to face is one of the most powerful tools DM in building a brand. For a football club, desperate to sell merchandise as well as tickets, the chance to meet 120 football mad kids in a secure environment, when it would cost little more than fifteen minutes of anyone's time, ought to be too good to miss.

So my trip to take my son to a Chelsea Elite Training Centre tournament at the Chelsea training ground in Cobham ought to have been a treat and a pleasure. The Chelsea In the Community team are brilliant with the boys. Despite being a passionate Arsenal fan, my son has benefitted from excellent training and treatment from the Chelsea coaches since he was four, and they have played a big part in making him a promising nine year old.

On Friday morning, the tournament happened to coincide with the Chelsea first team training session in preparation for their Saturday clash with the mighty Southend. Precisely 200 yards from the kids tournament. Whilst waiting to begin, we watched all the Bentleys arrive. Then the boys went to warm up, and the parents were given a welcoming speech that amounted to instructions not to look, wave, shout or generally breathe in the vicinity of the first team Gods. Not that we were about to rush over the ten foot fence, dodge the burly security men, and strip the clothes off of Frank Lampard for souvenirs...

Personally, from a marketing point of view, would it have killed a couple of players to walk a few yards just to say hello to the boys? They are all football mad. Half of them actually support Chelsea. My son was thrilled just to be able to see them in the distance, over the top of the fence, doing some light jogging...so a chance to see one up close would have thrilled him. Unfortunately, that did not seem to occur to Chelsea. In awe to the ego's of their young millionaire's, they would rather insult the intelligence and maturity of a few parents.

Obviously, we all had a good laugh about it, but it seemed rather sad. Football clubs, like any business, cannot afford to miss any chance to drum up support and goodwill. That is why the sales force and the call centre of any company are so important - they directly affect the way a customer feels about a brand.

Generally, so many people seem to have forgotten this. I had an amazing run-in with Virgin Media before Christmas, when they had overcharged me and told me it would take weeks to raise a cheque, even though they have my direct debit details and could easily transfer it straight back to me. It made me so angry I nearly switched to Sky on the spot. I am sure everyone reading this could recount a similar tale.

One of the first lessons I learned in business is that it is more expensive to get new customers than it is to keep existing ones. DM plays a huge role in this. Direct communication of any kind influences people. Chelsea struggle to sell out Stamford Bridge. Mr Abramovich is one of the hardest hit by the credit crunch, and he needs his highly paid employee's to help bring in the cash. This attitude that the great unwashed are beneath contempt will see many a football club struggle in the coming months if they don't wise up.

So, the lesson for today is look after your existing customers and take every opportunity to make them feel good about your brand. Because right now, you cannot be sure when a new one is coming along.

Hallelujah You can teach an old dog new tricks

1271576 — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:14:00 GMT

Happy New Year, one and all.

On New Years eve, just before the witching hour, I downloaded my first song. Previous to this momentous moment, I had stuck to the old ways, in other words, buying CD's...although I still call them albums of course. I do not own an iPod. And I was quite happy letting all this stuff pass me buy.

Then, enraged by Simon Cowell's treatment of Leonard Cohen's masterpiece, I had an urge to show my son that there is an alternative to X Factor manufactured pop schmalz, and I downloaded Jeff Buckely's rather excellent version of Hallelujah - the album version, of course, for the princely sum of 79p.

My son still prefers Alexandra, of course. Teaching new dogs commonsense is almost impossible, but it did get me thinking. One thing that recessions always bring is a new broom. So much dead wood is thrown out, that there almost always has to be a new way of doing things. So, for direct marketing, maybe there has to be a different way.

One inevitable consequence of this downturn is that a lot of businesses will disappear. Some consolidation will take place. Then, out of the ashes, new entities will emerge, hopefully learning some lessons from the past. It is essential that the industry focusses on good data, and on protecting and improving that data. If DM is to have a bright future, we have to win back to confidence of the end user, as well as our clients, and let's face it, there is a lot of rubbish out there.

To a great extent we have tolerated it, because it is hard to do anything about it. When clients have demanded cost savings, we have all even indulged ourselves, sometimes, in the old game of selling rubbish straight to the landfill. No more, please. Clients, whose money it is we are spending, should be encouraged to look at the quality of the data they are buying, to make sure it is right for them. We need strong data, that is well maintained, so that we can target effectively, giving us an argument against the accusations of junk mail.

We all need to think about what we are doing. Something went wrong in the last few years. It all got lost in the jargin somewhere. Hopefully, when we put the roof back on, things will be a lot different.

Where would I be without surveys?

1271576 — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:32:00 GMT

Just when the muse has left me, and I am wondering where the next blog will come from, another survey hits the streets. This one, from Experian, has some shocking statistics about duplicate mailings. Apparently, some scandalous B2B marketers are still de-duping by hand! Others - now sit down, because this may come as a bit of a shock - don't do it at all.

The big mailers have no excuse for this of course, but we have to realise that the vast majority of B2B mailings are relatively small, and cost is an important factor. In a world where the data is a third of the cost of the stamp, and the list seller tells you that their data is so good even Santa is going to use it, de-duplication is not going to be high on the priority list.

When using their own customer or prospect lists, things nearly always get worse. Let's face it chaps, most people are not very good at dealing with data. Even some data companies I have worked for have had some appalling in-house data.

I know this may come as a shock to my friends at Experian, but no one really cares. Of course, it doesn't do anyone any good to send out duplicate mailings, but quite a few clients would secretly admit that all they care about is hitting desktops. If de-duping is going to cost them, the answer is no thanks.

We should care. Then, naturally, we would all pay £250 per thousand for our data and rightly hold the supplier responsible if it turned out to contain more repeats than BBC1. But, we don't.