Reaching more consumers with certainty. Acxiom White Paper

It’s more than 40 years since Lester Wunderman first uttered the phrase ‘direct marketing’, and almost a century since the first trade body for the industry was founded.

The principles of direct marketing - reaching identified individuals through addressable media - remain true today, but the landscape between marketers and consumers has altered greatly, thanks to the constant development of new technology.

Since the economic downturn, marketers are under even more pressure to spend money efficiently, claims a new white paper from Acxiom.

It has become critical to provide clear line of sight from investment to return to get budgets approved. That means cutting out communications delivered to the wrong people or through incorrect channels.

To run efficient campaigns, marketers need the right data at their fingertips. Accurate consumer records, underpinning the ability to keep track of customers when their personal details change, are the difference between success and failure.

But all too often, organisations are unaware of the rapid erosion of data quality caused by leaving a database unchecked. In fact, consumer data decays at a rate where 22% of mail remains undelivered every year.

So in the UK, a whole customer database could be rendered obsolete for direct mail purposes in just over four years.

This figure is even worse elsewhere in Europe: for example, businesses’ databases in Poland often suffer decay rates of more than 30% per year.

In the UK, more than 20 million mailed items are incorrectly addressed every month, costing businesses an estimated £200m to £300m per year.

To read these new insights in full and Acxiom’s recommendations click the ‘download’ link below.