0208 915 1103|sales@thesoftwarebureau.com

Decision Marketing: Direct Mail revival beats rivals

By |2023-01-04T09:28:09+00:00January 4th, 2023|

Martin Rides writes for Decision Marketing about the role of mail moving forward into the new year. You can read the article here or below Brexit, Covid, supply chain chaos, cost of living crisis, economic freefall, postal strikes, train strikes, nurses strikes, economic freefall, worst and longest predicted recession… yep, the country is royally screwed and teetering on a knife edge. There’s no dressing it up, this year has been a shocker and next year is going to be even tougher for the marketing industry. Everyone is battening down the hatches and putting survival plans into place. Yet, there is one small glimmer of light… The resurgence of direct mail as a legitimate and effective marketing channel. If nothing else, [...]

Read More

Data hygiene is all academic, isn’t it?

By |2022-11-14T11:09:16+00:00November 8th, 2022|

How alumni teams at higher education institutions can enhance relationships with past students and increase lifetime value Digital transformation scores a B+ According to a study by McKinsey, almost 80 percent of organisations reported that during the pandemic they initiated a process of digital and data transformation. Undeniably, COVID 19 fast tracked many organisations’ transformation intentions. For instance, the higher education sector - not one famed for its agility - had been toying with the concept of Responsive Blended Learning, a hybrid of traditional classroom based delivery and online learning for years, but it took lockdown for this to actually become a reality. Most institutions went from face-to-face teaching to digital delivery in a matter of days. And with exam [...]

Read More

Analytics are only as strong as the underlying data

By |2022-09-16T13:16:01+00:00September 16th, 2022|

Why data hygiene must become a priority post covid According to Fortune Business Insights, the global machine learning and analytics market is expected to grow from $21.17 billion in 2022 to $209.91 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 38.8 percent. Clearly it is big business, and the global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has served to accelerate demand. Increasingly organisations from all sectors are turning to computers to make decisions from insurers calculating a customer’s risk profile through to airlines looking to work out how much food and drink to carry onboard. Every industry without exception can apply analytics to its data to make faster, more informed decisions. But, and it is a big BUT, analytics and machine learning [...]

Read More

Sustainable mail – reducing waste through data

By |2022-08-31T16:00:21+00:00August 31st, 2022|

According to Accenture almost one third of Europe’s largest companies have pledged to become Net Zero by 2050. Whilst a study from Deloitte shows that 67 per cent of SMEs have started using more sustainable materials in a bid to reduce their carbon footprint. No matter what industry or size of organisation; the environment is now a major element of ongoing business strategy which is being filtered down operationally for implementation. Making pragmatic changes is the key. Small steps across all areas of the business add up to major change. For organisations that use direct mail MarketReach and The Strategic Mail Partnership (SMP) new guide https://www.marketreach.co.uk/resource/using-mail-more-sustainably provides advice that helps businesses make their direct mail campaigns more sustainable -from choosing [...]

Read More

Why direct mail is good for charities during the cost-of-living crisis

By |2022-08-12T10:16:36+00:00August 12th, 2022|

Everyone will be feeling the pinch – more expensive food, more expensive energy, more expensive fuel… more expensive everything. For charities this is not good news, as when household expenditure rises, donations dwindle. As a result, two marketing objectives take precedence at this difficult time: The retention of existing donors The recruitment of spontaneous one-off gifts For objective No.1 data plays an important role. It is critical that charities are reaching out to their regular donors in a meaningful way to ensure that the relationship is maintain, particularly if the donations dry up during this exceedingly difficult period for many households. Contacting people that have moved house (and despite the depressing economic climate, home moves are still far outstripping those [...]

Read More

Want to drive an immediate response? Use direct mail!

By |2022-06-17T13:33:43+00:00June 17th, 2022|

  A new study by the DMA has been launched investigating the effectiveness of charity marketing. The research analyses 1,057 DMA award entries housed within the DMA’s Intelligent Marketing Databank and measures the number of reported ‘effects’, which are grouped into four categories: Response effects: including conversion, acquisition, sales, donations, bookings, footfall, downloads and CPA efficiency Brand effects: including brands awareness, ad recall, consideration, purchase intent, brand trust, brand perception, recommendation, customer satisfaction Business effects: including profit, market share growth, customer penetration, loyalty and shareholder value Campaign delivery effects: including reach, frequency and impressions Direct mail was found to be the most effective channel at driving response effects – particularly in the short term, which is important for charities looking [...]

Read More

The Huge Home Mover Opportunity 

By |2022-04-11T09:53:55+00:00April 11th, 2022|

Home mover monitoring is about ensuring mail reaches its intended recipient when they move house. The property market in the UK continues to boom as a result of the Chancellor’s Stamp Duty holiday introduced after lockdown 1. Despite the tax break coming to an end in September 2021, there hasn’t been any let up in demand for relocation. Home movers are at the highest they have ever been. The reality is that when we move house, most of us don’t inform everyone that sends us mail. The challenge for marketers is to stop the hundreds or sometimes thousands of pounds they spent capturing that prospect or customer from disappearing when they move home. A Marketing No-Brainer Data decay from home [...]

Read More

Goneaway & Deceased Suppression

By |2022-04-11T09:53:45+00:00April 11th, 2022|

The pandemic has had a devastating impact on mortality rates around the world. In the UK, according to CMI, the rise in deaths during 2020 and 2021 is the worst since World War II with over 130,000 additional deaths per year. In addition around 1.5 million people move house each year. This level of constant change can lead to data decaying at rates of over 30% per year for some organisations. The Office of National Statistics estimate up to 110 items of mail can be sent to the deceased in the 12 months after their death. For businesses sending mail to people that have passed away or moved house is more than just a waste of printing and postage costs. [...]

Read More

Lean DM – Focus on Intelligent Deduplication

By |2022-04-11T09:53:33+00:00April 11th, 2022|

In today’s more sustainably conscious world receiving the same piece of mail multiple times is not a good look for brands. Yet this is something that has happened to all of us on occasion. Maybe we signed up to a service twice or made two frequent purchases from a website or donated to a charity over the phone and also by post. Regardless of the reason, it feels like a waste and as a consumer you know somewhere down the line you and the environment are paying for that waste. Failure to effectively remove duplicates from a mailing file can also have greater consequences. One high profile charity donor received more than 10 duplicate appeal packs and immediately and publicly [...]

Read More

Name & Address Quality

By |2022-04-11T09:53:21+00:00April 11th, 2022|

Have you ever received a piece of mail, taken a glance at the address block and had to double take? Something doesn’t look quite right. A company asking you to spend hundreds or even thousands of pounds has just written to you as Dr Rowen Wilson rather than Dr Rowan Wilson. Although deep down you know this is most likely an administration error, you can’t help but feel a little slighted. It also begs the question ‘if they can’t even get my name right, what is the experience going to be like dealing with them if I became a customer?’. 70% of consumers expect their data to be right every time. DataIQ – GDPR Identifying its impact on marketers and [...]

Read More
Go to Top