Publications

DM Direct Special Report - Sep 21, 2004 - By Michael Meltzer

Given the ever-increasing amount of wrongly targeted direct mail and telesales calls we receive, one might think that many organizations still believe that customer acquisition is better than retention. Financial services companies, retailers and telecommunication (telcos) companies know little more about you than their mailing lists or partially completed Internet registrations reveal. They guess at demographics from an address and attempt to formulate psychographic profiles from individuals' magazine subscriptions details. This same information is available to almost any company. There is nothing unique about this data; little which can help one company differentiate their "unique" offer from another. They don't know what unique characteristics differentiate one customer from a potential consumer. They don't know a person's preferred method of paying their bills or seeking advice - is it credit card, debit card or cash for payment? Do they contact a shop, branch, call/contact center or the Internet for advice? Organizations that can answer these questions end up doing the bulk of the customer's business.

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