Spring campaign

It’s our data and we are proud of it

Now that Christmas has been and gone, and there seem to be signs of the economy picking up over the year ahead. Surveys suggest that business confidence is on the up. UK business confidence is running at a 20-year high, according to a survey by Lloyds Banking Group, which found that confidence had increased across all UK regions and sectors. The survey weighs positive and negative views to create a “balance of opinion”, and the latest positive balance of 45 per cent is up from 30 per cent last July.

The improving picture has been underlined in two other surveys; the EEF (the manufacturers' organisation for UK manufacturing companies) reported that two-fifths of manufacturing companies planned to raise investment over the coming months and a survey of UK finance directors has said that their appetite for risk has returned, with easier access to bank lending likely to mean their companies will expand and hire more staff in 2014.

What do you think, take our really quick three question survey.

If you have plans to win new business you will want to ensure that the pieces of your direct marketing plans fit together to give you the very best results. The list you use remains a key choice. You not only need to target your best prospects but you need to know your list is accurate and up to date. Our in-house research team ensure that the Corpdata Premium file has very few gone-aways, and its researched in depth to provide the detail, which gives you the opportunity to target the most appropriate decision makers. Remember every gone-away or mis-targeted contact will cost you in a lack of response or return, and possibly damage your reputation.

Yes it is only just 2014 and we are still stuck in the depths of Winter, but Spring is coming and Spring, as many B2B marketers knows, can be a very responsive time and a good time to present their wares.

Corpdata can help you present your message to the right people doing the right jobs and help you get your Spring marketing campaigns planned and moving. With hundreds of thousands of contacts with postal addresses, telephone numbers, personal or generic email addresses all that it could take is a quick phone call to 01626 777400.

Our data consultants would be delighted to help you find that elusive list of the people you need to talk to and only the people you need to talk to.

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Corpdata Biz

Corpdata.biz continues to grow becoming an easy platform for companies of all types and sizes to show what they do and how to make contact.

Corpdata.biz also allows our data quality to be lifted by the frequent involvement of company contacts adding or amending the detail generated by telephone research. Telephone research has always been central to what we do and our reputation has been built from years of effective research. Each telephone research call might typically be two or three minutes and structured to capture the information needed to create of update a site’s information. After ‘completion’ we email or fax our just checked record to the person we have just spoken to, just to give them the opportunity to amend (or sometimes correct!) what we’ve got. It’s a little bit more polish.

Direct Marketing and the Law

Its not only for the obvious legal reasons and the avoidance of legal penalties but also because of the pointlessness of contacting someone who might be annoyed by your contact. The impact on your sales team if you fail to manage your list properly and the loss or reputation both inside and outside the company for a job not done properly.

A quick and simple overview of the things you need to check:

Telephone Preference Service – imposes a legal requirement that unsolicited calls are not made to numbers registered on the TPS unless they have your consent to do so. The TPS maintains a register of both residential and commercial businesses (CTPS). Corporate registration on the TPS allows all businesses (sole traders, partnerships, PLC, LTD and public) to join a register to block sales calls.

The legislation requires that TPS screening must be undertaken by anyone making promotional and/or fundraising calls to any business or residential number to ensure that they are not calling a number that is registered with the service.

Mailing Preference Service – exists to prevent the receipt of unsolicited direct mail, but it does not often impact on BtoB, in a BtoC world, something you need to understand and act on, if for no other reason than sending mail items to people who will get annoyed.

Fax Preference Service - is the opt out register to prevent the sending of unsolicited sales and marketing faxes. It is a legal requirement that faxes are not sent to numbers registered on the FPS.

Corpdata screen all data shipments against both the TPS and the Fax Preference Service.

Email legislation - All personal data whether corporate or individual is covered by the Data Protection Act which states that individual subscribers (name@company.com or name@isp.com) must be able to opt-out from all unsolicited commercial emails, the sender being responsible for complying with this legislation.

Corpdata telephone research and reverify email addresses of organisations, sites and individuals as part of our six monthly data refresh cycle. We only supply email addresses of limited companies, public limited companies or public sector organisations to ensure that we comply with current legislation which prohibits unsolicited emails being sent to sole traders or partnerships, or other individuals.

Privatisation of Royal Mail

The privatisation seems to have been very popular, and time will tell if the change in ownership will prove to be a sound investment for those who have purchased shares. The keen take up of the offer does demonstrate a confidence in Royal Mail as a business and might also be synonymous with the potential of mail as a channel.

Privatisation has shown a lot of confidence in Royal Mail based on the expectation that post will continue to be in demand - In an age when there is much talk about moving on line there certainly seems to be reason to say “Don’t forget direct mail”.

See this infographic.

Effectiveness of direct mail is recognised by many people across the marketing industry, but to really prove its worth its so important to minimise gone aways and also to use information which is accurate, detailed and up to date; the right person, the right job at the right address.

Kiwitastic

We talk about data quality a lot, it makes us different and worth it. Producing accurate data doesn’t happen without someone doing something well. Hayden (our imported Kiwi) has been with Corpdata for five years, the last three years as a Research Team Leader. Here’s what he has to say:

“During any given working day my team of five researchers and I can conduct up to five different types of research call covering a range of Industry sectors.

We can be asking for anything from a company’s list of senior decision makers and their personal emails to what technologies are being used in their office and how much their quarterly spend is for various bills. So with such a variety of information to research how can we ensure that our data is accurate?

Everyone in the research department undergoes rigorous training in all areas of research we undertake. It can take up to six months from a person starting with us until they are fully trained in all the areas of research.

Once in a research team, the focus on call quality does not diminish. A few calls are randomly checked and monitored every day for every researcher to ensure each record is being compiled thoroughly and the call handled in a friendly manner.

Thorough training, clear expectations, encouragement, regular feedback and reasonable targets and objectives are all in place in order to ensure our data is of the highest quality and Corpdata’s reputation as a quality the business data supplier continues.”