News & Events

Marketers 'wasting thousands on irrelevant mail'

Date posted:

10th July 2008

Sending direct mailings to the wrong people is costing marketing managers thousands, new research shows.

Marketers may be wasting thousands of pounds by sending out irrelevant direct mail and marketing items to the wrong people, according to a new study.

Research from Formscan reveals that in the last six months 53 per cent of consumers have received direct mail addressed to someone who has died or someone who no longer lives in their home.

The document solutions provider calculates that almost 100 million of the 40 billion items of direct mail sent out to consumers each year are being sent to the wrong addressees, costing businesses £50 million.

It says that if a marketing manager sending out 5 million pieces of direct mail was to capture information on items returned by consumers and use commercial suppression services to eliminate inaccurate mailings, they could save between £50,000 and £75,000 annually.

Chris Haden, managing director of Formscan, told Utalkmarketing: "With such obvious cost savings on the table, it is surprising that more firms aren't taking action to process their direct mail returns."

Meanwhile, writing for MyCustomer.com, Robert Rijkhoff suggests marketing managers should opt-out tick boxes for direct mail with opt-in versions, ensuring that mailings are sent to consumers who have an interest in the products and services being marketed.

Blue Skies Marketing Recruitment works on behalf of both permanent and freelance agency and in-house candidates across the creative, design and branding, digital, DM, events, experiential, integrated, PR and sales promotion sectors.