UK Contact 360

Mailing Lists & Data Protection

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:00:00 +0000

The information commissioner in the UK has responsibility for enforcing and promoting the Data Protection Act (DPA) 1998. Adherence to the eight principles of the DPA provides a strong framework for businesses to manage personal data effectively.

Despite this, the direct marketing industry was the second largest area of complaint for the Information Commissioners Office for 2009/10, and they have the power to take action against anybody who breaches the act.

High profile, high value cases tend to hit the national press. Norwich Union, were fined £1.26m for a systems breach that allows fraudsters to secure £3.3m from surrendered insurance policies. But it’s not just the private sector that has fallen fowl of the DPA. Ealing Council, Hounslow Council and Hertfordshire County Council have been fined a total of £250,000. Both Ealing and Hounslow managed to lose unencrypted laptops containing customer information and Hertfordshire faxed sensitive information regarding a sex offender’s case to the wrong recipient.

Wolverhampton City Council, Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council, Cambridgeshire County Council, Isle of Anglesey County Council, Gwent Police, NHS Blood and Transplant, Scottish Court Service, Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and even The Rainforest Alliance have had to sign undertakings to improve their compliance.

So what can the average small business learn do avoid fines and undertakings?

Well, if you’re so inclined you can start by reading the Data Protection Act 1998 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/contents but it’s probably easier to remember a few key points:

1. Be transparent about collecting personal data.
2. Store is in a secure location (physically or electronically).
3. Keep it up-to-date, accurate, and relevant for your specific purpose.
4. Manage the gone-a-ways and those not interested

Finally, have a simple policy in place that outlines how you do all the above. Moreover, get your marketing data from a reputable supplier!

Doormat activity is Alive & Well

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:22:00 +0000

You may be thinking, what with the advent of email, that direct mail is a dormant activity. But believe it or not it has never been a better time to use direct mail within your marketing activities.

Think about it. when was the last time you received a jolly big pile of post? It is a rarity these days – even banks are using the internet to send out statements. And this is good news for direct mailers. It means that there is less competition on the doormat, and therefore more chance of being noticed and, fingers crossed acted upon. But how can you make sure your direct mail does illicit a response?

Firstly, don’t expect a single piece of direct mail to create a response. Research shows that a minimum of three pieces of communication need to be received before a desire to act is created (remember AIDA – awareness, interest, desire, action). Each piece of communication should be different but should be instantly recognisable as your brand. They should each contain the following elements to help the prospect digest the information you want to tell them:

A catchy headline – this should be benefit led (save yourself £200 a month) rather than feature led (we save our customers money)
An obvious call to action – what do you want the customer to do? Go online, call, email – make it clear and check telephone numbers, emails and web sites work!
Add a PS which encapsulates all the points and reiterates the urgency of your offer.
Theme your mailings around something relevant – for example this week is pancake day so why not springboard off of that either through the creative look or the copy “flip me” “flip side” “don’t flip out” “are you ready to flip” “flip, flip hurrah”... the list is endless.
Finally include an offer. If there is no incentive to act now then people won’t. Your follow up mailings could even use the “time’s running out” theme to instil a sense of urgency. Boden do this incredibly well by reducing the discount they are offering day but day from 15% to 14% to 13% and so on!

There are many other things you can do to maximise the success of your direct marketing but by using these tips you will be off to a “flipping” good start.

Direct Marketing – Remember 40-40-20?

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:54:00 +0000

It’s accepted as the Basic Direct Marketing Equation, that 40 + 40 + 20 = SUCCESS!

40% of a campaign’s success is determined by the quality of the data list used
40% is determined by the offer made to the recipient
20% is determined by the appearance

Data Quality

Probably the area that I have most interest in, not being bias in anyway but I actually think that if you get the data wrong then offer and appearance go straight out the window. A fantastic chance of a lifetime offer, presented in gilded quality, is no good to me if it’s not relevant and that’s where data quality comes in. Apply some commonsense metrics to your data to reduce the cost and increase campaign success.

Quality of Offer

Your description of your product or service is your offer. Things rarely just sell themselves, but they do tend to be easy to describe, therefore becoming easy to understand and easy to communicate. Give your customers the path of least resistance and make buying from you easy.

Quality of Creative

More is not always better. The bigger the message, the longer it takes to deliver so the more chance you have of losing the prospects interest. Persuasive, simple and short bursts seem to work the best.

The great thing about all of the above is that you have the power to influence or change any of these items to tip the balance in your favour. Start small, test everything, and find the right formula.

Measuring Direct Marketing Success

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:22:00 +0000

I was at a networking breakfast yesterday morning, chatting informally to another “networker” when he mentioned he was about to send a direct mail campaign out and was hoping for “huge successes”. Being my area of expertise my ears pricked up and I asked (what I thought to be an obvious question) “How are you measuring that success?”

The poor man in question looked crestfallen. He was obviously so excited about the campaign he had overlooked how he was measuring its success. I quickly assured him that this quite common and it was easy for him to rectify. I then ran through the three most common ways in which he can analyse his campaigns success so that he will begin to understand which of his marketing efforts really work... and I shall share these with you now.

1. Cost per acquisition or cost per lead

This is the most common and basic analysis, which will help you gauge the effectiveness of your campaign in terms of the cost you must spend in order to achieve a lead (no matter what the quality of that lead). To determine this figure you simply divide the total cost of the mailing by the number of responses. For example, a campaign that costs £1000 and rewards you with 50 leads has a £20 cost per acquisition. This is useful information, as it will help you determine whether the campaign is worth the expenditure for the number of leads it is going to generate.

2. Cost per piece

The cost per piece is determined by dividing the total mailing cost of the campaign by the number of units mailed. For example a mailing campaign which costs £1000 and mailed 1000 pieces has a £1 cost per piece. Now you may think that reducing the cost per piece to its lowest possible point will be a good thing. However, be warned. The quality of a campaign is a reflection of your brand and if your data is cheap or out of date, you could be wasting your efforts on the wrong contacts or contacts that may have moved on.

3. Response rate

The final way to measure success rates is to measure the response rates to the campaign. To obtain this figure you simply divide the number of people who respond to your campaign by the number of people you sent it to and multiply by 100. For example, a campaign that mails 1000 people and had 50 responses has a response rate of 5%. I would consider this a very good response rate.

By keeping these measurements and continually changing and adapting your direct marketing you will become more informed about your prospects and how and what they respond to, helping you improve your direct marketing campaign by campaign. Good luck!

Direct Mail is here to Stay

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:40:00 +0000

It would be fair to assume with such a swing to all things digital, that any sort of offline marketing activities will surely become obsolete. However, it appears that the pendulum could be swinging back towards direct marketing (DM).

Both disciplines suffer slightly because, and this in one for the Seth Godin supporters, they are still forms of “interruption marketing”, fighting along with a selection of brands for the buyers attention but interrupting whatever the buyer was doing at that moment. However, direct mail and telemarketing have one fundamental advantage over email, and that’s the quality of contact data for offline DM is infinitely better than that available for email campaigns.

I get that email is ridiculously cheap to send, and a small budget can produce amazing images and sound that would rival a multimillion-pound TV campaign but when it came to ‘e’ campaigns the fundamentals of targeted, accurate, relevant, timely and data driven marketing goes out the window. Hey, if you’re sending 10,000 emails, why not send 100,000, 1,000,000 or 10,000,000? Nevertheless, they is a problem, which can be explained through permission marketing (another Seth Godin reference) and a small amount of psychology.

My email is publically available on our company website and a selection of social and commercial websites so I shouldn’t be surprised that I receive a lot of irrelevant email. Thing is, my email address is still something that is personal to me. When I pass on my email willingly, I’m giving that person or company permission to continue the dialogue but when it’s meaningless spam, it’s an invasion of my inbox on my laptop in my office.

Direct mail is subtlety but importantly different. My letterbox is in the public domain and visible to those that come to the property and accepted as a way of making contact with me. Whilst there will be those that moan about junk mail, it is still an acceptable method for a new supplier to introduce their product or service. And with less companies mailing compared to 5 years ago, your message actually has more chance of getting through. The other very important thing with data for direct mail is that it is generally more information rich. Various demographics (age, location, gender, turnover, staff numbers etc) can be filtered against very easily but an email address gives me nothing, not even the country the person is in!

There is however a happy balance that can be struck and it’s about taking the best of direct marketing and combining it with email. Email is great for contacting existing customers and providing a gentle nudge for those people you have already done business with you. In effect, you have permission to continue the relationship and have been allowed into their inboxes. Direct mail or telemarketing is the tool that opens the door and asks for permission to sell.

So for those on the new business trail, use offline DM to start the relationship and then email to continue it.

Advertising Standards Agency & Online Marketing Communications

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 10:09:00 +0000

As of 1st March 2011, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) will be extending its remit to include marketing communications on companies own websites and other non-paid-for web space that is under their control. The UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion, and Direct Marketing (CAP Code) will apply in full to marketing messages online, including the rules relating to misleading advertising, social responsibility, and the protection of children.

It will not only cover marketing communications on their own websites but also non-paid-for space within the advertisers control on social networking sites such as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. It is not just .co.uk websites that are covered. As long as the company is operating from the UK, all domains are covered.

A marketing communication is defined as a communication, direct or otherwise, for products and services, or a gift that primarily sets out to sell something. Whilst marketers look for increasingly clever ways to communicate their message, a marketing communication may still be covered even if there is no request for an immediate transaction.

User Generated Content, provided by private individuals falls under the new remit only if the content it adapted and incorporated within a company’s own marketing messages and online communications.

This new legislation is unlikely to affect the majority of businesses that carry out responsible marketing and online communications. Where is could get interesting is the publishing of material by unregulated users under their corporate identity. Do companies really have the time, money and inclination to review the Tweets of each of their employees?

Qualify your prospects by asking bold questions.

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 17:32:00 +0000

Time is precious, chances are you’re working to a deadline, and typically your prospects are feeling the same pressure. Do them and yourself a favour, and ask these questions before you incur the cost of a face-to-face meeting. You’ll qualify the prospect earlier, focus the prospect on buying and start dealing with prospects wanting your products and services.

The pre-amble that gives you permission to ask further questions is:

“I don’t want to waste your time, so would you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

After this, any 2 or 3 of the below will move you closer to a sale:

What is your process for making decisions of this kind?
What kind of timescales better suit this kind of purchase?
What could you accomplish with a purchase like this?
Who else gets involved with a purchase like this?
What is the number one problem that this purchase will solve?
What have you seen/heard that really appeals to you?
If we were to meet, what would you want to achieve?
What would stop you making a decision to buy?

It’s a very direct approach, but does avoid any confusion about why you are looking to meet with the prospect. Phone calls are not sales. Web enquiries are not sales. Meetings are not sales. Only sales are sales. Get bold, ask the questions and move on.

Are you a Good Guardian of Marketing Data?

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:09:00 +0000

OK so you have invested much time and revenue in creating a superb marketing campaign. Your message is clear and concise and instantly pinpoints the problem your organisation can solve. Your campaign is now ready to roll so all you need to do is to get this considered message out to the audience. Easy!

STOP! Before you go one-step further have you considered the quality of your data? Because, like the majority of companies we work with, I suspect that your data strategy will be to send this honed and considered message to your database arguing that these are “warm” prospects. But, are they really? Can you and your colleagues honestly say that your database is up-to-date, relevant to the campaign (in terms of size, location, job function etc), free from time-wasters, goneaways, customers and ex-customers?

If you send your campaign without checking the validity of your data and, perhaps adding to it to improve your potential return on investment, you could be close to wasting all your campaign budget and effort and, even more worryingly, creating a poor brand image.

But all is not lost. Follow the steps below and you could soon have a data strategy that helps increase lead generation to deliver truly memorable campaign results.

1. Define your target market
As obvious as it seems define who you want to take your message to. Is it a certain job function, industry, geography? Or could your message be as effective to companies outside of your traditional “target”? Whilst honing in can make a campaign well defined it could also be leading you away from a new marketplace.

2. Don’t assume seniority is best

We all want to talk to the organ grinder and not the monkey but the organ grinder may not always have his door open. Take slow, baby steps working up through the ranks and you may reap the results you need more effectively. Remember you only ever get one chance with the Big Cheese!

3. Create a data management strategy

Know, in advance, how you are going to manage response to your campaign. Who is responsible for removing goneaways? Who will be responsible for following up enquiries? Make sure your whole team is clear on the importance of continually cleaning and updating one central database and the importance of avoiding creation of separate data silos. As your campaign progresses, prioritise data between hot call-backs, call-backs, no reply, not interested and remove.

4. Know your prospects movements

If you have spent time, and subsequently money, on creating a relationship with a prospect then maximise this investment when your prospect moves organisations. From your initial one opportunity, with careful management, you could now have two. Make sure you are aware of who will be taking over the old role and where your prospect is moving to so you can move with him.

Ultimately, no matter how wonderful your products, how amazing the offer and how effectively this message is told if it is told to the wrong person it will always fall on deaf ears. So avoid this and get your data working for you.

New Year – New Drive – New Customers

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 11:01:00 +0000

If you run a business or are involved in any step of the marketing/customer acquisition process, one of your New Year’s resolutions must have been along the lines of, “How do I get more business?”

For most, finding new customers is the lifeblood of any company. Having neatly completed the contact details at the front of your 2011 diary, what are you going to do to make sure that the next 365 days are productive and packed with new business activities?

A good place to start is with what’s on your doorstep. Do you know the key businesses in a 5, 10, 25 miles radius from your office? If you have a B2B product or service offering, do you have a top 500 prospect list that you constantly market to? Are there businesses out there that could add value to your offering? Are there businesses out there that you could form strategic partnerships with?

Having up to date contact lists of suitable prospects is where it all starts. Filtering by company size, geography, and turnover will give you a good first pass to building your prospect base but how do you go about getting the meaningful contact data that enables you to make better and informed decisions?

Well given you’re reading the ukcontactdata.com blog, that should be enough of a clue! Drop me a note at mark@ukcontactdata.com for a confidential chat about your data needs.

ukcontactdata’s quick Guide to Successful Direct Mail Campaigns.

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 11:57:00 +0000

Direct mail does work. Even in the age of email and social communications, direct mail is still the most effective way of finding new customers. There are however some caveats. When I talk about direct mail, I’m not talking about blanket mass mailings to tens of thousands of people. I’m talking about focused campaigns where the key word is ‘relevance’. Various factors influence relevance. Market conditions, products & services, audience, buying cycles, ease of purchase, company reputation all play their part.

There are some companies and industries whose reputation goes before and therefore are unlikely to benefit from any kind of marketing.

So, to help you through, I’ve come up with a few pointers, some things for you to consider and some questions that you should be asking, before, during and after your direct mail campaign.

Set Your Goals – and be specific. Set a product sales number, or leads total and a timeframe for achievement. Understanding your own sales process by looking at each stage and ask, what do we go through to get a sale.

Fix The Budget – and stick to it. What’s the cost of reaching you objectives? Is there an achievable ROI?

Timeline Your Activities – and plan the process. This includes the data, mail piece, fulfilment, delivering, monitoring etc.

Competitive Analyses – as Sun Tzu states, “...know thy enemy...”

Who Are Your Customers – if you’ve already got some, then look at their characteristics and attitudes.
Get Creative – not silly, just creative. What message to you want to communicate? How do you want your prospects to respond?

Get Designing – and keep it simple. Leave the complicated mailers to the big companies and their huge budgets. Letters and postcode with a strong message to the right audience will win every time.

Tell The Team – in fact, tell everybody you work with. Everybody needs to be aware that a campaign is happening and more importantly, they need to know how to respond to new potential customers.

Measure And Evaluate – have some way of knowing how successful you have been and how the results measure up against the original goals.

Finally, remember that any marketing has to be an ongoing activity. It’s a bit like getting fit; you don’t go to the gym once, you keep going until you achieve your goal.

Direct mail marketing works...

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 10:47:00 +0000

Used effectively, direct mail local advertising is a powerful direct marketing tool to promote your business in your community. It serves various functions by informing, calling prospects to action and getting people to try your products or services.

Direct mail marketing benefits businesses by being:

A low cost alternative to mass media marketing.
Extremely effective at reaching your local community.
Being highly customisable.
Easy to segment and target individuals.
Easy to localise and change if need be.
The right promotion is a powerful way to encourage calls to action.
Flexible enough to use for existing customers and relationship building.

Reading the above, why wouldn’t you give direct mail a go? There’s an even bigger incentive to start using direct mail when we can supply the data, print & personalise you letter, enclose & deliver by Royal Mail for little more than the cost of a stamp!

Top TV advertising spenders in the UK

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:27:00 +0000

There is a cracking table in the April 2010 edition of The Marketer which lists the top 10 TV advertising spenders in the UK for 2009.

Now, I took at look at this list and a most of the usual suspects were there however quite a few of the UK biggest companies were actually absent from the list. But there was one name on there that I wasn’t expecting, more about that in a moment.

Just to give you a feel for the amount being spent, let’s get a feel for some of the names who didn’t make it.
Diageo is a great example of somebody who didn’t make the list. The name probably rings a distant bell but I’m pretty certain you would have seen at least one of their products on the TV. Guinness, Baileys, Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, are all well known brands, yet Diageo and its various drink brands don’t make the top 10.

Nor does HSBC, the world’s largest bank, yet I always seem to be listening to Michael Gambon doing endless voiceovers for them. Shell, BP and British Gas aren’t there either, despite the huge profits and the ridiculous price of fuel.

So who else doesn’t make the top 10? Vodafone, Marks & Spencer, British Airways, Sky, Sainsbury’s, and BT Group also don’t make it. In fact, you have to look at Tesco’s who are 9th before you get to our largest companies appearing in the top 10.

If I say, “...because I’m worth it...”, then most will recognise the L’Oreal tag line and they are 3rd with a UK TV spend of £90m. Number 1 is Proctor & Gamble and given the number of brands they have (Old Spice being one of them!) it’s no great surprise. Ford, Kellogg’s and Unilever all appear in the list but the one that has really surprised me (surprised...sorry...I mean wound me up) is HM Government! Not only are they in the list but they are a proud second! Yes, our failed government spent £99m on TV advertising reminding us just how bad it’s doing.

To make it worst, Royal Bank of Scotland (a taxpayer owned entity) is 6th! Why is a publically owned financial institution spending more on TV advertising than HSBC, Barclays, Legal & General, and Prudential? Surely the £66m they spent could have been put to better use.

Anyway, I’m sure you can draw your own conclusions and for completeness the list is:

1. Proctor & Gamble:   £118,000,000
2. HM Government:   £99,000,000
3. L’Oreal:     £90,000,000
4. Reckitt Benckiser:   £82,000,000
5. Unilever:    £69,000,000
6. Royal Bank of Scotland:   £66,000,000
7. Kellogg’s:    £60,000,000
8. Ford:     £48,000,000
9. Tesco:     £40,000,000
10. News Corporation:   £40,000,000

Direct Marketing: Royal Mail lifts the limit on the amount of unaddressed mail it can deliver

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 10:11:00 +0000

Letters and a lot more of them, now that Royal Mail is doing away with its 3 letter limit for unaddressed mail. A Royal Mail spokesperson says the deal will enable it to “compete more effectively with competitors to increase our market share”.

Short term, this is likely to be good for Royal Mail. Marketed as their “Door to Door” service, keen and eager telesales representatives will be selling the virtues of direct marketing but is this good for the sender and the recipient?

If you are sending a letter, then you knew, that you’ll be competing with a maximum of 2 other companies vying for the recipients interest. Success is easier to measure, ROI easier to calculate. You could make an informed decision about how effective your direct mail campaign had been. If there is no letter limit, your marketing message and subsequent effectiveness is going to be diluted. The 3 letter limit was a natural regulator, not just in terms of volume but for the quality of the direct mail piece.

As the recipient, I’m now faced with getting more unsolicited mail courtesy of Royal Mail. Although there are some advantages, it will be easier to identify and subsequently dispose of! However, this is unlikely to help raise the profile of direct mail marketing. There is already a tendency to complain about the number of marketing messages received. Many of them are not relevant. In trying to appeal to a mass market, they become bland and meaningless. I suspect Royal Mail’s decision will help consumers become immune to a relevant marketing message.

Taking a longer-term view, I suspect that the number of companies sending unaddressed mail will reduce, as the returns will start to diminish and less unaddressed mail will lead to happier recipients.

In amongst all this, I think something else will happen. I think they’ll be more opportunities for personalised and relevant direct mail to be successful. Accurate consumer data allows for profiling against some key demographics and hybrid mail solutions allow personalised letters to be printed and delivered for little more than the cost of a stamp. Anything that is personalised and delivered with the ‘real’ post as opposed to the unaddressed post, will be treated as far more important.

UK Direct marketing industry achieves recycling goals.

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 10:00:00 +0000

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has published a report that the direct mail industry in the UK has achieved its 2009 recycling target, with ...”76.5% of marketing materials recycled over the course of the year...”

To coin a phrase widely attributed to British Prime Minster, Benjamin Disraeli and later popularized in America by author Mark Twain, “...lies, damned lies and statistics”, let’s explore what other feel good figures this equates to.

The DMA voluntarily made a commitment to reduce the amount of direct mail ending up in landfill sites, which to date is equal to 348,000 tons of brochures, letters and envelopes. Recycled materials has, according to Click Green, saved 382,689 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. The 76.5% figure for 2009, is more than 20% ahead of target and has even put of ahead of targets established for 2013.

This is all pretty impressive. There are some big numbers and the direct marketing industry is finally becoming more socially responsible but at a grass roots level, what can be done by those looking to direct marketing as a way of generating new business?

If you look at where the direct marketing process begins, it starts with contact data. For years data suppliers have been telling you that more is better due to the relatively low success rate of direct mail. Thing is, if you start off with less data of a better quality, more relevant, and more targeted, not only does your direct mail cost reduce but your conversion rate goes up. Who wouldn’t want to achieve more by doing less?

And we understand this very simple concept at ukcontactdata.com. We’re not about pushing you to buy huge amounts of data that puts you of doing anything more with it. We’re about selling relevant data that you can then use effectively.

The steps being taken by the DMA are admirable and worth pursuing but the message has to ripple down to the data suppliers who then have to educate their customers.

Direct Marketing: “My name is...My name is...” in the style of Eminem.

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 09:22:00 +0000

You can pretty much guarantee if you’re in the market to buy some contact data, various data supplier and list brokers, will be pushing their accuracy rates down your throat with a range of claims that nobody is more accurate than them.

Accuracy is important but I actually think there is something far more important, that typically is over looked...and that’s usability.

Let me explain.

I’ve looked at 4 different data suppliers over the last month, asking them all for a basic data count. I wanted the data to use with our Print & Send service, so having the first names of the contacts was a requirement for personalising the letter to them. And this is what started to skew the numbers. On average, I was being quoted for data where 40% was unusable.

See, my name is Mark. Not ‘M’ or a blank space and if I’m a small business on a tight budget, just getting into direct mail, I need to make every pound spent count. Also, this usability factor upfront, ripples through the whole campaign with wider implications. All of sudden, I’m paying extra for data I don’t need, and then there’s the unnecessary print and post costs. There is also an argument about the environmental impact, not to mention how this affects my conversion rate and return on investment.

One day, data suppliers will get it. They will understand that selling less but more accurate data benefits everyone in the long term. Until then, we’ll only sell you stuff that you can use. We’ll do the filtering and checking so you don’t have to. You buy from us and you’ll get data that is a lot more useable than anyone else’s. And whilst we have some great technology and an easy to use website, you’ll also get somebody you can talk to and work with.

We do contact marketing data and we do it very well.

Direct Marketing - Who’s on your Doorstep?

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 08:58:00 +0000

While most business owners understand the importance of marketing, few really understand the true value of having readily available lists of business owners at their disposal. Do you know all the companies in a 10-mile, 5-mile, 3-mile, or even 1-mile radius of where you operate? In most cases, readily available lists of business owners contribute to the growth of a company in a degree comparable to the use of aggressive marketing techniques.

A list of business owners allows you to expand your business contacts to a considerable extent. This is important especially in terms of the referrals that other business owners can provide. Referrals have often been touted as being one of the most effective methods of marketing. Given such, you could explore the possibilities of gaining referrals to your business by offering a proposal to other business owners.

In addition, such a list would allow you to manage your business with greater effectiveness. With vital information such as the company’s core business and sales volume figures, you would now be in a better position to gauge the prices of various factor inputs offered by other business owners. You would then be able to source out the best quality products needed for your business at the most affordable price. This would result in greater profitability and effectiveness in terms of operational and financial management when running your business.

Furthermore, a list of business owners at hand would provide you with the necessary leads where the expansion of your current business is concerned. You would be able to target companies engaged in businesses that you would like to acquire. Subsequently, being able to target specific information provided on these lists, you would then be able to send out proposals for merger and acquisition possibilities. More often than not, it is more productive and cost effective to buy an existing business compared to starting a new business. A list of business owners would become extremely handy should you be interested in establishing a new line of business for your company or simply interested on expanding your company’s scale of production.

The above are by no means exhaustive. It is indeed up to your own experience and creativity to make use of the information provided in business lists to achieve the desired level of growth in your business. However, we’re probably a good place for you to start building your local business list.

Direct Mail – Missing postcodes cost online businesses £146,000,000 a year.

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 17:11:00 +0000

Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) has launched the third in a series of “Valuing Home Delivery Review” following on from previous publications in 2006 and 2008.

The 2010 review serves to show what progress the e-Retail industry is making to reduce inefficient costs for its stakeholders. Specifically, points covers include:

· The impact of address quality and data management

· The cost of late delivery

· The cost of attempted delivery

· The cost of failed delivery

· The environmental cost of failed delivery

Data was correlated from 95 retailers with a total of 3.5 million active online shoppers, processing 13 million orders with a value over £1 billion, and over 14 million parcels dispatched.

The point I want to make is the impact on your bottom line of not having the correct contact data when marketing to new customers. IMRG calculated that the average cost of a late delivery was £4.25 and the loss of a customer would cost them £91.34.

I’d remember that next time somebody offers you cheap, unverified marketing data.

Direct Marketing - Leaving meaningful voicemail messages

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:45:00 +0000

Some people use technology and some will hide behind it. The debate about should you leave a voicemail message when making a cold call will no doubt continue. I don’t have a strong view either way. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. But if you are going to leave a message the following tips may help.

1. Get down to business right away. Be professional and not phoney, your name and phone number is enough at the start of the message.

2. Reference upfront. Referring to a college or peer, assuming they like/respect the person, straight after your introduction, can stop them reaching for delete.

3. Show you’ve done some homework. Mention similar people or companies you have genuinely worked and make sure they can provide a reference point.

4. State a strong value proposition. This is what the first 3 steps have been leading up to, so make it good. Remember, again it have to be a genuine claim.

5. Get fresh. Share a different perspective that positions you as somebody they should speak to.

6. Eliminate the verbiage. Resist the temptation to talk about systems, methodologies etc as you’ll sound just like another supplier. Get rid of all the pomp and pageantry, this about them not you.

7. Sound like a trusted peer. Don’t be humble and appear grateful for 5 minutes of their valuable time. Be a trusted peer and use language as though you’re a colleague with an idea.

8. Script it as a guide. Don’t read verbatim from a script but do at least have the key points covered and practice, practice, practice. You’ve got 30 seconds at absolute best, so make every word count.

9. Keep the initiative. People that don’t now you rarely call back. End by saying you’ll call again later at a specific time.

Getting though to new clients on the phone is no different from any other form of direct marketing. The key point is always relevance. In an ideal world, you’ll be doing the right thing, with the right people, in the right way at the right time. Keep trying, keep leaving short, professional messages and you’ll find that what you have to offer is becoming more relevant for you customers.

How many software companies with 10 staff or less are there in Berkshire, Surrey and Hampshire?

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:22:00 +0000

If I send out 10,000 letters without thinking about my audience, my direct mail is going to end up in a lot of bins and the enquiries I get are never from the right kind of prospects. I have wasted time and money buying data, printing my letter and stuffing envelopes.

Problems start with the data supplier. They want you to buy bucketfuls of contacts. More has to be good right? To see what happened we tested one of the more reputable suppliers of marketing data looking for software companies in Berkshire, Surrey and Hampshire with 10 staff or less. I started making my enquiry via their website but the interface was so difficult to use I had to call the call centre.

I was astounded when the operator told me that he had, 5,500 companies listed that met my exact requirement. I questioned how that number could possibly be right and where was the information being sourced from? The answer was essentially along the lines of, “Well that’s what the computer says and the sources is a well known directory, so it must be right.” In an attempt to “close the deal”, I was then offered a 50% discount off the cost of the data!

The lessons learnt, data providers want to sell you a lot of data and they’re not too fussed about the quality. Why? Because they know that, you know that you’ll probably only expecting a 1% response rate. They also know that because of this, you’ll be unlikely to order from them again and you’ll go to another reputable data supplier and the same will happen. They have one opportunity to sell, so they had better make it as big as possible.

How about buying much less data?

Most data resellers sell the same data, taken from the same sources. These sources are not data providers. The data is a by-product of their core business activity, which is selling advertising in their directories.

We start with this data and then make 50,000 updates to the database every month. We can have anything up to 200 different data fields for any one company. That’s a lot of very useful information, which you can benefit from. It’s going to sound odd but I’d rather sell you 100 of the right contacts than 10,000 of the wrong ones. Your costs will be lower, your success rate higher and we will keep you as a long term client.

In case you’re wondering, there are 318 software companies with 10 staff or less in Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey!

Using Direct Mail to Drive Internet Traffic

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:23:00 +0000

So you have a fantastic new shiny website and next to no one looking at it. Google Adwords are becoming more expensive and SEO takes time. It may seem odd to use a more tradition direct marketing method, but our internet using buyers, according to Brand Republic respond well to direct mail (http://bit.ly/a0aVbT).

To get you started, here’s 4 quick tips you can use today (after you’ve bought your mailing data from http://www.ukcontactdata.com/):

1. Give your prospect a good reason – tempt them with an offer or the promise of something that has real value to them.

2. Think about your URL – remember they will have to type in the web addresses as opposed to a simple click from an email, so try and keep it short and simple.

3. Provide Clear Instructions – don’t have them jumping through hoops or you’ll lose them.

4. Set up a Landing Page – send them to a specific page. This way you can track responses, control your marketing message and collect good data for your next campaign.

Direct Mail Marketing is still a winner...

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:20:00 +0000

Since 2005, the MAP/DMA Marketing-GAP Tracking Study has been monitoring consumer attitudes to the Direct Marketing (DM) industry. It achieves this via an online questionnaire of 1,376 consumers and a panel of Direct Marketing Association (DMA) members. Given both parties are asked the same questions, what has started to become apparent, is the void between what marketers believe consumers want from their direct mail.

However, hidden amongst all the opinions on design style, envelopes, free offers, correct addressing, previous company awareness, the most interesting figure for me was that, 86% of consumers polled open their direct mail!

This is a fantastic statistic. To think that more than 8 out of 10 of the people you write to will open the letter. And apparently, if you’re either a well known household name or, a small local business, this number gets even higher!

My problem is, if this number is to be believed, then why does direct mail still return relatively low conversion rates?

It appears that design has very little influence in terms of getting the envelope opened. Interestingly, those involved in design services, claim something different, over playing the importance of their role in the direct mail marketing process. Also, freebies and special offers don’t influence the consumer either, although the marketers think it does. So what’s left, if getting direct mail opened and read doesn’t seem to be the problem.

Well having questioned the role of designers and merchandising, that really only leaves data suppliers and those responsible for mailing lists. Data suppliers typically want to sell you tons of data (ever noticed how hard it is to get a decent sample?) and the mailing managers will hide behind low response rate to encourage more mailings to be sent – it’s good for the CV to have a few large campaigns under your belt. Thing is, the agendas of these two groups are also at odds with achieving the overall objective of increased response rates.

This is where I think uncontactdata.com is different. We want you to buy your data from us, but I don’t want you to buy 10,000 records that may or may not be relevant, just because they happen to be in an area you’re targeting. I want you to buy 1,000 records that accurately reflect the right kind of customer for your business. Do this and you have (according to MAP/DMA Marketing-GAP figures), 840 relevant people reading about you and your business who are more likely to pick up the phone, visit your website, or go to your premises.

Direct mail is being opened, so get relevant, get targeted and start getting new customers.

The basics of data hygiene.

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 09:29:00 +0000

In 2009, Royal Mail reported, “...every week, 600,000 pieces of mail cannot be delivered due to being badly addressed or packaged...”

And it’s fair to assume that data quality has some bearing on this.

So we’ve come up with 6 steps that can help keep your database clean and subsequently more profitable.

1. Review your database. Sounds obvious, but start by looking at what you have and what you want to end up. Most data suppliers can provide a free data audit, looking for overall quality, duplicates, gone-a-ways and preferential service checks.

2. Choose a supplier. And consider what data they have, level of service and innovation, their expertise and support, and finally the price. Cheapest is unlikely to be the best.

3. Data entry. Data can come in from various sources so it helps to standardise the inputting process and have a validation process in place.

4. Clean, standardise and dedupe. Start with the Royal Mails PAF file to validate addresses and expand this to produce a standard data format. Don’t lose valuable information when depuping. Make sure records can be linked and create master records. Flag similar records for a final manual clean.

5. Suppress the database. Use deceased and gone-a-way files to run against your data. Use more than one field to validate against. Name and/or addresses combined with date of birth to avoid mismatches.

6. Repeat. Database cleaning is not a onetime activity.

Once done, it becomes easier to keep on top off. Depending on the numbers of records you’re managing, a 90 day refresh policy should be enough. Clean, more accurate data will bring increased results. Measure response rate and sales activities to help justify any additional cost in data management.

Direct Mail on the Brain

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:45:00 +0000

Direct mail still remains an effective way of reaching your target audience and according to an article by Royal Mail’s media director, Mark Thompson (http://bit.ly/aet7By), can be proved to have a significant effect on our brains.

He says, “...neuroscience experiments support the theory that direct mail creates significantly longer-lasting impressions on certain areas of the brain compared to digit marketing...”

Now, I don’t know much about spatio-temporal aspects of brain function, but I do know where you can get a decent mailing list and start stimulating your prospect’s neocortex.

I’m too busy to think about using direct marketing for new business.

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:33:00 +0000

Work is good. Your business diary is nice and full for the next couple of months. Established, reliable customers are keeping you busy. You have some visibility of what you’ll be billing and more to the point, your associated ‘other half’ has a good idea on what to spend it on. Clients are promising more work, subject to the usual budget approvals etc.

So why would you put yourself through the hassle of looking for new business?

But here’s the thing. Two months will come round quickly, that new project won’t make the cut, and all of a sudden, the diary is looking a bit bleak.

When is a good time to be prospecting for new customers? How about the phrase, “When would now be a good time.” Simply put, marketing and finding new prospects has to be an ongoing activity.

This is what I’d recommend. Buy targeted marketing data from a quality online supplier who offers the convenient feature of being able to upload a direct mail piece that can be personalised, print and delivery by Royal Mail from only 25p per record!

Now I know that was a blatant plug for our business but I think what we do is amazing. We typically save our customers around 45% of the total cost of running a direct marketing campaign.

Start by getting some B2B, B2C, or New Incorporations contact marketing data. Next, write you marketing piece. If that’s not your thing we can do that for you. For about £50 a professional copywriter will produce the perfect marketing piece. Upload your data list, upload your letter, upload a PDF of your letterhead paper and we’ll start mailing on your behalf.

No messing around with printers, or having to stuff envelopes and stick on stamps, we do the lot. Direct Marketing on auto-pilot is how I like to think about it.

So, how’s your diary looking? Want to keep it full with new business opportunities or are you going to wait a couple of months?

And the moral of the story is...you decide the ending

noreply@blogger.com (Moolamarkie) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 10:41:00 +0000

Ian is a landscape gardener with a profitable little business operating in Berkshire. By his own admittance, he is the not the best at drumming up new business. Excuses vary, and anyway, business hasn’t been too bad given the credit crunch. His advert in the local paper still generates the occasional enquiry.

“You want to write to few people.” Says his buddy one night over a pint. “Do a bit of that marketing stuff, that’s what you need.” He adds. “My mate uses this company that does the lot for him. Sorts him a mailing list, prints his letters and they deliver them too...”

Ian breaths in sharply, “Sounds expensive to me, and these people haven’t got time for us small businesses.”

“Not a problem” the learned drinker says, “it’s all done online. Dave works for himself and just let’s them get on and do it.”

The evening draws to a natural close, and they both return to their respective homes. Thing is, life goes on. We have good intentions but ‘stuff’ just gets in the way. With a lawnmower to service, and an important (in fact, his only) corporate client to attend to, Ian was back in his landscaping rut. Until one day, Ian had a chance encounter with his clients Facilities Manager.

Ian was doing a spot of canopy thinning when the Facilities Manager wondered over holding what looked like two or three letters.

“You’ve got a bit of completion.” Ian wasn’t quite sure how to answer, but the facilities manager continued, “Looks like there is a new landscape gardener in town.” This got Ian’s attention.

“Smith & Sons?” the Facility Manager questioned. Ian thought for moment. Smith and sons? The only person he thought it could be was Old Bob Smith out. He’d bump into Bob occasionally but he couldn’t imagine the old boy would be touting for business. Bob was more like your traditional tradesman, worked on recommendations and word of mouth. He wouldn’t be writing to people.

Ian read with interest about how Smith & Sons, are a trusted, established business, with strong local connections. He read quotes from satisfied customers and at the end of the letter, he saw the signature, Bob Smith. He also noticed that the letter was printed in colour on quality paper and that Bob had a shiny new logo.

“Think I might get him in for chat.” The Facilities Manger said. “One of the guys down at the Chamber had him in and he did a good job.”

Ian suddenly threatened. He knew that other suppliers are looked at, rarely is a customer for life but he was painfully aware that his one and only big, regular paying client was thinking about a change and he had nothing in the pipeline.

I reckon that any one of the following could happen:

1. Desperate not to lose the business, Ian offers the Facilities Manager a 15% discount. Not ideal but one in the hand and all that.

2. The all too easy, do nothing option. What will be will be and they weren’t the same company now that they’d been bought by some multinational.

3. Look at ways to make sure that there is always new business in the pipeline.

Obviously, I’d say option 3.

More to the point, I want him to go to www.ukcontactdata.com, I want him to email mark@ukcontactdata.com who’ll sort out all the marketing data, help with the letter, get it personalised, printed and posted for little more than cost of a stamp.

Then again, I’m not Ian.