The notion of using bills, statements and other statutory customer correspondence as an advertising medium, has gained much currency over the last three or four years. The process has even been granted its own special name — ‘transpromotional’ or ‘transpromo’ — by the research organisations.

Given that the idea of transpromo has taken hold - it is currently being successfully performed by a range of pioneer organisations - and is deemed by the analysts to be at the beginning of a period of explosive growth, attention needs to be paid to any factors that might hinder its development. The theoretical economics of transpromo all stack up. Postage costs can be eliminated or reduced by putting advertising in the same envelope (depending on whether the additional contents exceed postal weight and size breaks). Consumers devote great attention to their bills and statements, and so accompanying advertising is piggy-backing this high attention moment. Response rates to transpromo adverts are comparable with solus direct mail campaigns. Group 1 Software research found that this could be achieved if a targeted message in the transpromo white space is combined with an appropriate inserted leaflet. And so on. However, all this falls flat on its face if data quality issues are not properly handled. While people are extremely responsive to well targeted, appropriate sales messages, they are equally put off if an organisation that they buy from either cannot get their details correct or, even worse, sends bills or statements to someone who is no longer living at the address, or who has died. If there is an element of garbage in the input data, then there will be an equal level in the output. Whereas consumers will exhibit an inbuilt level of tolerance for misdirected direct mail, such an essential item as a bill or statement, when misdirected, causes a dramatic loss of confidence in the company concerned along with major concerns over personal data security.

To gauge how widespread data quality problems are, at this crucial moment of growth for transpromo activity, we commissioned a survey of the UK consumer population, asking to what extent people had experienced the worst of data quality offences — receiving a bill or statement for the wrong person.

The key statistic from this research is that a staggering 40.3% of British adults had received a bill or statement for the wrong person in the last six months. To put this in context, around two billion consumer bills and statements are sent out in Britain each year, the bulk of which come from financial services providers, phone companies, utilities and loyalty schemes. If 40% of the populace, as this research tells us, is (at a conservative estimate) receiving a couple of bills or statements addressed to the wrong person every six months, this equates to some 74 million such misdirections annually, or just under 4% of the total sent. However, seen another way, the research has revealed that there are 74 million cases each year of firms damaging their brand through misdirected bills and statements, the vast majority of which are avoidable through better management of customer records. Out of this government, credit card, mobile phone, banks and storecards emerge as the major offenders, in large part not because their data standards are substantially lower than the other sectors, but because they generate such high volumes of transactional documents.

More interesting are the variations by age group and by region. Misdirected bills and statements are most severely experienced by the 25-34 age group, with almost two thirds (62.2%) having received such transactional documents addressed to the wrong person, consistently reducing across the older age bands up to the over-55s at 25.4%. This is perhaps not surprising in that new home activity also tails off with age. More important is that even amongst the more static but wealthier empty-nesters aged 55 and above, still fully one quarter are experiencing misdirected bills and statements.

This is surely an indictment on customer data standards at banks, phone companies, credit card issuers, government, and all other senders of transactional documents, all of whom want to grasp the transpromo opportunity, but a section of whom seem to be undermining that opportunity. Simple levels of house moving cannot be blamed for this phenomenon, as only some 10% of the population change their dwelling each year, as compared with an average 40%+ of people who are experiencing misdirected transactional documents. In terms of geography, examples of misdirection are experienced most in Greater London, East Anglia, the Midlands and Wales & the South West. Customer data standards are highest in the North East and Yorkshire.

As an advertising medium, transpromo is substantial, valued at some £0.5 billion in the UK alone. It is in no position to replace direct marketing and other advertising activity, but it does represent a largely unexploited advertising opportunity. However, two fifths of the population have received bills or statements addressed to the wrong person in the last six months, a factor which — if not addressed — could seriously undermine consumer attitudes to advertising carried with, and on, those documents. The opportunities presented by transpromo are probably very considerable. But their effective use requires British business to make significant enhancements to the way it manages and updates customer records.

Following two years at the London College of Printing studying for an HND in print management Yolanda started in her first role as a Sales Representative for SR Communications where she worked for four years, achieving the position of Sales Manager. She was headhunted by Mastermail for the role of Sales Director where she stayed for five years. Yolanda then started her own business City Financial Mailings (CFM) alongside her brother, Alastair Maclean, in 1989. In subsequent years CFM's growth was achieved through the formation of the complimentary data, print, mail and fulfilment business units City Laser and Global Solutions Management in addition to the acquisitions of Alphamail and Burnham International. In 1999 the CFM companies were sold to the Techmail Group who re-branded all the businesses under the Orchestra name. After resigning from the Techmail Group, Yolanda established Corporate Mailing Matters (UK) Ltd in November 2002. In January 2004 Orchestra Group offered the CFM group of businesses for sale to Corporate Mailing Matters (UK) Ltd. This transaction was completed in February 2004 and the businesses merged with the original founder, Yolanda Noble, as CEO. In April 2007, Corporate Mailing Matters merged with Direct Solutions International creating a major force in the direct communications sector. The dsicmm Group is the UK’s largest independently owned direct communications organisation; the merger capitalises on the strengths of both companies and provides a unique platform to extend the range and value of services offered to customers as well as to develop new opportunities in what is a growing global market. Company: dsicmm Ltd