When the List Business Goes Away
| Category: Database Marketing | Date: 2001-07-24 |
I received my Experian (TRW) report in the mail. I was amazed at the number of companies that had run my credit rating to offer me pre-approved loans and credit cards, which I had not asked for. It made me think. Should we have that much random access to someone’s credit history? As a direct marketer, I understand the reasons why we do. Nontheless, it concerned me as an individual. This made me wonder how our customers and prospects feel about the intrusiveness of our business. A June 1998 article in Reuters headlined Direct Marketers Get Low Marks On Privacy Protection, gave me a clue. The Internet (e-mail) and more powerful computers have given us greater access to data which in turn has made it easier to find look-a-likes and contact them by e-mail, phone and regular mail. The process is a bit like an octopus, or planets orbiting the sun. By clicking on a web site, you are registering your footprint on a server which gives up your information and drops cookies on your computer to let itself (the site) know that you are a return visitor.
As more companies deal directly with their customers and gather information from the Internet, phone and mail; computing solutions for managing customer relationships are centering on one thing: data. Names, addresses, phone numbers, personal demographics, lifestyle preferences, transaction data and other customer information is being funneled into systems that combine it with more data into larger, robust systems with scoring capabilities, genetic algorithms and anticipated behavior programs. As a result, reference look-ups, prospect qualification, fraud detection and verification of an applicant’s data is nearly instant. Handling a customer’s record becomes about as personal and sensitive as looking at the daily stock marketing listings.
Increasingly, web sites offer incentives to obtain information and convert shoppers into buyers and buyers into loyal customers. Is this working? Studies show that one half of online consumers would gladly increase the amount they spend on certain web sites if incentives (such as reward points) were offered. Newsweek Magazine found that among its audience of online readers the Net is a daily and very important part of their lives.
At the same time consumers are applauding Net marketing, they are losing patience with the old forms of mass marketing like direct mail and unwanted telephone solicitors. As list marketing is becoming more efficient through modeling techniques and cheaper with a focus on high-responders through customer relationship management, lawmakers in Washington and the news media are targeting the wholesale selling of customers lists, now that those lists are appended with all types of information from household income, bankruptcies, type of car, personal credit history, where an individual shops and phone numbers, including restricted numbers to illness and medications.
The list companies, for the most part, do not monitor who this information is being sold and sent to. ABC’s Dateline recently devoted a third of one program to the abuses of information for sale.
In the past, consumers were okay with a certain amount of their information being made available, because they believed it would result in having better access to information and new products or services. But now, as consumers feel the pinch of not enough time for leisure pursuits, they don’t want marketers to take up their valuable time. New millennium consumers have no time for pursuing magazine and newspaper ads, wasting hours at the mall and being held hostage by 30-second TV commercials and dinner-time telemarketing intrusions. Instead, consumers want marketers to provide them with more convenient methods of accessing products and services.
If the promise of the Internet is correct, the tables will turn and it will be the responsibility of marketers to find consumers. The customer will hang out a virtual sign that says I want information on travel to Fiji, including airfare, a thatched roof cottage on the beach and a rental car. These are bots and they will advertise the best offer. Marketers will have to bid for the right to do business with a customer.
This, of course is the highest form of Permission Marketing. The potential impact of other forms of media going opt-in (telemarketing becomes as oxymoron) seems almost incalculable. As anti-spam legislation is enacted, how long can it be until these new laws are applied to traditional marketing practices as well?
Consider the following scenario: A consumer registers online and indicates in his or her profile that they don’t wish to receive offers from third parties or have their information shared with other companies. Later, another department or division of the company rents a list that coincidentally contains this consumer’s name. A direct mail solicitation is sent, and litigation ensues.
Certainly, marketing clutter drives consumer desire for opt-in. But the crux of the issue really comes down to privacy, choice and control. For many consumers, the Internet crystallizes their fears of Big Brother. If consumers really understood the behind-the-scenes brokering of personal information that supports the traditional marketing practices of many companies, opt-in might have happened years ago. Information about car registration, drivers’ licenses, marriage, number of children, divorce, property, mortgages and many other kinds of information that is controlled by the government is sold and used for commercial uses every day. Telephone companies happily sell the news of your connection within days. The post office takes a little longer, updating marketers about changes of address about every two weeks.
Much of the information that marketers need to measure and target consumers isn’t sensitive material. I don’t need to know your name and address to be able to tailor an ad or a page or an offer to your preferences. I just need to know what your preferences and demographics are.
The fact is, marketers and advertisers can do targeting based on profiles in exactly the same way they do targeting based on content areas. As an example, if they’re placing the ad in the sport content area, it’s easy for them to target based on sports interest, too. One feature in future consumer-controlled information mailboxes will be the ability to predefine complex targeting criteria and then allow a less database-oriented marketer to simply pick and choose predefined audience targeting criteria. Beyond the numbers themselves, is the growing zealotry behind the philosophy of email marketing. It’s truly taken on religions overtones as the mantras of permission and opt-in are chanted by more and more marketers.
In the future, the new list business may be not a list at all. Instead, it may be a complex set of bids and requests all triggered by new software, a greater understanding of the Internet and savvy online marketers. Sure, there will always be list sellers. But the market will be very old, the lower social economic strata and the remaining customers who are good targets, but have no use for technology.
About the Author.
Robert McKim.
:To contact see details below.
DBMarkets@aol.com
http://www.msdbm.com
As more companies deal directly with their customers and gather information from the Internet, phone and mail; computing solutions for managing customer relationships are centering on one thing: data. Names, addresses, phone numbers, personal demographics, lifestyle preferences, transaction data and other customer information is being funneled into systems that combine it with more data into larger, robust systems with scoring capabilities, genetic algorithms and anticipated behavior programs. As a result, reference look-ups, prospect qualification, fraud detection and verification of an applicant’s data is nearly instant. Handling a customer’s record becomes about as personal and sensitive as looking at the daily stock marketing listings.
Increasingly, web sites offer incentives to obtain information and convert shoppers into buyers and buyers into loyal customers. Is this working? Studies show that one half of online consumers would gladly increase the amount they spend on certain web sites if incentives (such as reward points) were offered. Newsweek Magazine found that among its audience of online readers the Net is a daily and very important part of their lives.
At the same time consumers are applauding Net marketing, they are losing patience with the old forms of mass marketing like direct mail and unwanted telephone solicitors. As list marketing is becoming more efficient through modeling techniques and cheaper with a focus on high-responders through customer relationship management, lawmakers in Washington and the news media are targeting the wholesale selling of customers lists, now that those lists are appended with all types of information from household income, bankruptcies, type of car, personal credit history, where an individual shops and phone numbers, including restricted numbers to illness and medications.
The list companies, for the most part, do not monitor who this information is being sold and sent to. ABC’s Dateline recently devoted a third of one program to the abuses of information for sale.
In the past, consumers were okay with a certain amount of their information being made available, because they believed it would result in having better access to information and new products or services. But now, as consumers feel the pinch of not enough time for leisure pursuits, they don’t want marketers to take up their valuable time. New millennium consumers have no time for pursuing magazine and newspaper ads, wasting hours at the mall and being held hostage by 30-second TV commercials and dinner-time telemarketing intrusions. Instead, consumers want marketers to provide them with more convenient methods of accessing products and services.
If the promise of the Internet is correct, the tables will turn and it will be the responsibility of marketers to find consumers. The customer will hang out a virtual sign that says I want information on travel to Fiji, including airfare, a thatched roof cottage on the beach and a rental car. These are bots and they will advertise the best offer. Marketers will have to bid for the right to do business with a customer.
This, of course is the highest form of Permission Marketing. The potential impact of other forms of media going opt-in (telemarketing becomes as oxymoron) seems almost incalculable. As anti-spam legislation is enacted, how long can it be until these new laws are applied to traditional marketing practices as well?
Consider the following scenario: A consumer registers online and indicates in his or her profile that they don’t wish to receive offers from third parties or have their information shared with other companies. Later, another department or division of the company rents a list that coincidentally contains this consumer’s name. A direct mail solicitation is sent, and litigation ensues.
Certainly, marketing clutter drives consumer desire for opt-in. But the crux of the issue really comes down to privacy, choice and control. For many consumers, the Internet crystallizes their fears of Big Brother. If consumers really understood the behind-the-scenes brokering of personal information that supports the traditional marketing practices of many companies, opt-in might have happened years ago. Information about car registration, drivers’ licenses, marriage, number of children, divorce, property, mortgages and many other kinds of information that is controlled by the government is sold and used for commercial uses every day. Telephone companies happily sell the news of your connection within days. The post office takes a little longer, updating marketers about changes of address about every two weeks.
Much of the information that marketers need to measure and target consumers isn’t sensitive material. I don’t need to know your name and address to be able to tailor an ad or a page or an offer to your preferences. I just need to know what your preferences and demographics are.
The fact is, marketers and advertisers can do targeting based on profiles in exactly the same way they do targeting based on content areas. As an example, if they’re placing the ad in the sport content area, it’s easy for them to target based on sports interest, too. One feature in future consumer-controlled information mailboxes will be the ability to predefine complex targeting criteria and then allow a less database-oriented marketer to simply pick and choose predefined audience targeting criteria. Beyond the numbers themselves, is the growing zealotry behind the philosophy of email marketing. It’s truly taken on religions overtones as the mantras of permission and opt-in are chanted by more and more marketers.
In the future, the new list business may be not a list at all. Instead, it may be a complex set of bids and requests all triggered by new software, a greater understanding of the Internet and savvy online marketers. Sure, there will always be list sellers. But the market will be very old, the lower social economic strata and the remaining customers who are good targets, but have no use for technology.
About the Author.
Robert McKim.
:To contact see details below.
DBMarkets@aol.com
http://www.msdbm.com
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