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A Practical Guide to GDPR Compliance for Processors

By |2018-12-18T15:57:59+00:00October 18th, 2017|

If your business takes possession of personal information such as a list of named individuals to be mailed or cleansed, then chances are you will need to make changes to your business to become compliant with GDPR. Organisations who collect, store and ‘own’ data are classified as data controllers, whereas organisations who take custody and use the data for example to print and send a direct mail campaign are classified as data processors. As of May 2018 data processors such as mailing houses, printers and data bureaux will be subject to many of the same new legal obligations enforced upon data controllers. Failing to adequately prepare your business for GDPR increases the risk of fines, but will also likely cost [...]

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Central Mailing Invest in Cygnus from The Software Bureau

By |2018-11-06T10:39:57+00:00October 12th, 2017|

About Central Mailing Services Ltd With 60 staff, 3 sites and 25 years under its belt, Central Mailing is a prominent player in the direct mail industry. The £7+ million turnover business provides end-to-end direct mail facilities to predominantly Education, Charity and Performing Arts clients. Richard Morrow, Sales Director of Central Mailing points to a strategy of continuous investment in technology and equipment as the winning formula for prolonged growth. Central Mailing provides complementary data health checks to clients alongside a full range of data processing functions within their in-house data bureau. A team of 10 data professionals process in excess of 70 jobs per day handling everything from the standard deduplication and sortation through to data hygiene work combining [...]

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Why Data Suppression is Key to Compliance with GDPR

By |2018-11-06T10:40:07+00:00May 25th, 2017|

DataIQ recently teamed up with Cygnus Embedded Suppression contributor, The Ark to produce a Whitepaper discussing data suppression and GDPR. The Whitepaper puts forth the message that deceased suppression will effectively become a legal requirement come May 2018 when GDPR comes into force. While both the legislation itself and the guidelines from ICO don’t go quite so far as naming deceased suppression as a legal obligation to achieve compliance, DataIQ make the argument that failing to undertake deceased suppression increases the likelihood of a technical breach. Falling foul of the ICO for a technical breach can cost organisations as much as 2% of group turnover (find out more about GDPR here). So how do Suppression files help organisations achieve compliance [...]

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Winning new clients with Royal Mail

By |2018-11-06T10:40:24+00:00April 12th, 2017|

Since its privatisation in late 2015 Royal Mail have become more proactive in their approach to growing the use of mail. Mailmark is of course the most prominent scheme introduced by Royal Mail in recent years, however one of the postage providers lesser known programmes is Mail Made Easy. An introducer programme aimed at connecting first time mail users with direct mail providers. Since its inception the scheme has led to the introduction of 600 organisations to direct mail providers, 75% of which become regular direct mail users. If you provide direct mail services and you are looking for a zero cost marketing channel, this scheme is very much worth considering. How it Works A generous discount of up to [...]

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Come on ICO, give us guidance and clarity! Give us a chance…

By |2018-11-06T10:40:34+00:00February 24th, 2017|

By now every fundraiser in the land will be aware of the ICO’s draconian stance on wealth screening, data appending and data matching following the recent Fundraising and Regulatory Compliance conference in Manchester. The bow waves from this conference are going to be immense not just for the charity sector, but for marketers in general, if the ICO continues to be allowed to interpret the Data Protection Act in this manner. And make no mistake – this is purely an interpretation of the DPA; it is entirely subjective. One person’s ‘fair’ is another person’s ‘unfair’. It is for this reason that for those of us in the data industry that have worked incredibly hard with fundraisers over the past three [...]

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A guide for fundraisers to the thorny issue of direct marketing compliance

By |2018-11-06T10:40:41+00:00September 28th, 2016|

Fundraising is the lifeblood of any charitable organisation. Without it the organisation ceases to exist. However, it has never been harder for fundraisers to raise money. Donation levels are down but the number of registered charities is rising. Competition is fierce and marketing is one of the most effective ways of building brand and cause awareness which has a proven correlation with donation levels. The problem is that marketing itself is a minefield. Seemingly every week a new proposal or legislative framework is mooted making it extremely difficult to keep track of what is and isn’t allowed. FPS, The Digital Economy Bill, GDPR and a new ICO are just a few of the issues charity marketers are currently facing – [...]

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Sixty Percent of Marketers Shun Reverse Marketing Costing £145 Million Per Year

By |2017-01-11T22:07:51+00:00August 11th, 2016|

A new study by The Software Bureau reveals that 60 per cent of marketers do not practice reverse marketing; the management of direct mail returns, which costs firms £4.02 per returned piece of mail. Approximately 90 million pieces of direct mail (2.5 per cent) are returned to sender each year. Forty percent of these or 36 million are returned due to the recipient’s wish to be removed from the marketing database equating to a loss of potential revenue of £116 million and £29 million in wasted production costs. Reverse marketing enables organisations to compile in-house do not mail lists that can be screened against future campaigns reducing the volume of mistargeted mailings, saving money and improving the reputation of the [...]

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Growing Your Direct Mail Business

By |2017-01-12T12:21:00+00:00July 22nd, 2016|

What’s Going on in Direct Mail? It seems direct mail has had somewhat of a renaissance over the last 12 months. Royal Mail’s Mailmen campaign has been doing a sterling job providing statistics & research.  There has even financial incentives to lure organisations to add direct mail to their marketing mix. However, the underlying decline in absolute volumes continues. PWC suggest by 2023 direct mail will be just over 4bn items, down from over 10.5bn items in 2005. So if the future of the direct mail is not to be driven by volume, what trends can ambitious direct mail business owners capitalise on?  Trend 1 – Permission Late last year RNLI announced its intentions to move to an opt-in-only policy [...]

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Proposals for a Fundraising Preference Service

By |2017-01-12T14:09:25+00:00April 8th, 2016|

Response to discussion paper by Martin Rides, Managing Director, The Software Bureau Please find below our response to the Fundraising Preference Service discussion paper and questions raised within. We believe it is crucial that software providers, such as ourselves, are engaged early on in the design and development process to ensure that the FPS is fit for purpose and works effectively for consumers and fundraisers alike. It is for this reason that organisations such as Royal Mail consult with us and our peers when implementing initiatives such as Mailmark. Worst case scenario for FPS is to introduce a solution that fails to stop unwanted solicitations or stymies legitimate fundraising opportunities for charities that desperately need the donations.   Scope It [...]

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Making Money From Data Processing

By |2017-01-12T14:13:23+00:00March 29th, 2016|

You might consider data processing to be a necessary evil. An unfortunate and expensive activity you have to undertake to sell direct mail. However as clients continue to search for increased response rates and look to limit the potential for bad press, it is time to start bringing data processing to the front line of your business. Forward thinking mail producers like Pepper Communications have made Lean DM a key differentiator. Jude Whitford, Managing Director of Pepper was quick to see the potential of Lean DM and it’s having a real impact on his bottom line. ‘We have won 2 sizable new clients recently by focusing on Lean DM and the data services we can offer with Cygnus. Once we [...]

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