To Clean or Not to clean data that is the question

So, why clean your data? Here at Romax, we are of the belief that less is more. Why send your personalised direct mail campaigns to incorrect addresses? It really does defeat the object of what you are trying to achieve.

Data Decay

Around 1.5 million people move house each year and over 500,000 people, unfortunately, passed away. 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 estimates up to 110 items of mail can be sent to the deceased in the 12 months after their death.

Sending mail to people who have died or moved house is just a waste of printing and postage costs. When a business chooses to send mail without removing these recipients the only message being communicated is ‘the brand does not care about its customers’. Relatives of the deceased or new occupants are highly likely to see the brand negatively when they receive this type of mail.

Increasing response rates

Remove the inevitably unresponsive records from the mail file. Response rates will increase and the overall cost of the campaign can be reduced. You will save on the printing, enclosing and postage costs.

Options to look at relocation files is a very good idea. If a customer moves it makes sense if they have an affinity to your brand to follow them to their new address. Cost of acquisition is far more than retention. So this offers an extremely cost-effective solution.

GDPR

Of course, then we mention GDPR. The responsibility of the data owner to take all reasonable steps. And ensure all personal information kept on record is regularly screened and updated or deleted. Using a bureau service such as ours will ensure you are taking this responsibility seriously along with our audit reports which can act as evidence of this.

Romax offers all the major data suppression files for the UK, in our market-leading data processing solution. This allows us to simply run an audit onsite, so your data isn’t being given to 3^rd parties and so not losing control of your data. A free health check on your data will be returned to show the results and how we can improve it.

In summary, we are of the opinion of why wouldn’t you? Mailing costs are reduced, and data is improved all resulting in better ROI on your Direct Mail campaign.