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It doesn't matter how creative your copy, perfect your print or exciting your event... if your direct mail lands on a dud doorstep you may as well throw your budget in the bin! Rachel Hunnybun suggests that managing a database is the first step to successful mailing.
Arts marketing practitioners are key players when it comes to database marketing. They use some of the most sophisticated segmentation techniques in the business, aren?t afraid of being creative to attract responses, and have the added luxury of marketing to people who are customers already. OK, so budgets may not be bulging, but there are ways and means around that and arts marketers generally find them! Arts organisations are extremely good at data capture at the point of sale, exceptionally switched on when it comes to data protection, and use database marketing effectively to communicate with patrons ? both active and inactive. Regular patrons, subscribers and members are easily tracked and its possible to be pretty confident of a response to a mailing. Yet, while the definition of regular attendance has remained broad, job and housing markets have changed and people now move more. The question arises, can you be sure that your direct mail is hitting the spot?

Keep it clean

Commercial businesses often only have a few thousand customers to market to and as a result often resort to buying hit and miss lists, which they spend thousands of pounds mailing to. Often the product they are selling is far less glittery than a panto and not nearly as appealing as a night out! However there is one distinct advantage that businesses in the commercial sector have over arts organisations ? they look after their data hygiene: something that is considered as crucial as the campaign itself and an investment that pays off almost as quickly as its been made.

As its name suggests, database marketing is only as good as the database used. Running a mailing campaign to 20,000 recipients with an average of 5% dead wood will waste nearly £1,000 of a budget when postage, brochure price, envelope cost and staff time are considered. A waste of money, a lower percentage of response rates and increased staff hours?all in the name of not having the budget to do anything about it!!

Know your data

Mention the word data and most people start to yawn. It?s not glamorous and can get out of control if left alone for too long. The ostrich syndrome could be the worst course of action as a customer database is live and grows more out of date every day. By far the easiest and most effective way of dealing with a database is to employ the services of a registered bureau. There are professional people who will actually enjoy sorting out your data?honest!

Hull Truck Theatre Company holds data in a Databox box office system. Different sections of its customer database were being mailed a season brochure twice yearly. This selection was done on a random basis, with no real knowledge of whether the mailing was targeting reachable patrons or not. After confirming that the active data was in good condition, the company set about sorting the inactive portion of its database so that there was less pot luck involved when deciding who should receive this all-important mailing. Tess Langley-Smith, Marketing Manager of Hull Truck Theatre, commented, ?The elimination of bad data is paramount in our bid to re-engage and build wider audiences. We believe that the quality and cleanliness of our database is vital to our future marketing success.?

Cost saving

There are several types of suppression files used to find the people on your database who have moved, died or joined the Mail Preference Service (although if you have ?informed consent?, this over-rides MPS). When these files are run in conjunction with PAF postcoding software, the result is a database that is fully postcoded, extremely accurate and properly cased so that the maximum Royal Mail discount applies ? Mailsort discounts are only applied on correctly postcoded records. The cost of mailing the data will be lower and response rates should increase.

The Usher Hall in Edinburgh is in the process of looking at the whole of its database as a number of former patrons have been imported into a new box office system. The marketing department is keen to gain more knowledge and better segmentation of its current and prospective audience, and in order to do this, staff plan to mail the whole database to gain further information. With the process of data cleaning, they can immediately strike off patrons who have moved, deceased or gone away. This will reduce the size of their mailing and streamline it so that they can be sure it is reaching the intended recipient. The cleaning process, along with the segmentation of the audience, will establish a more accurate database for the future and help to increase direct mail response rates.

A manageable process

Don?t be afraid. It?s easier than you think. There are different ways of attacking the problem. It needn?t cost your entire annual budget and it doesn?t all have to be done at once. If you feel nervous about deleting records then you can flag the data to enable it to be categorised as it is imported back into your system, allowing you to manage the process to suit the needs of your organisation.

Data management is essential to keep a handle on your direct marketing activity. It is an expense but will save you money, most certainly in the long run if not within one mailing?s expenditure. Any organisation that uses its database for marketing purposes, needs to ensure that this valuable tool is kept up to date, clean and as effective as possible. Direct marketing on a shoestring is fine? just make sure the string you?re using is up to the job!

Rachel Hunnybun is Sales & Marketing Executive at CCR Data Ltd, a Royal Mail accredited data bureau and mailing house.
t: 01980 592999; e: rhunnybun@ccr.co.uk; w: http://www.ccr.co.uk