Grasping the direct marketing advantage
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Ryan Shannon has worked as a specialist database marketing consultant with Experian, and as Client Services Director on the agency side. He has gained considerable experience of working with some of the largest consumer databases in the UK. He has been involved in customer acquisition, development and retention campaigns for leading consumer brands in the financial services, charities, mail order, telecommunications and broadcast sectors. Within the financial services sector he has had experience working with credit card, insurance, assurance, pension, investment companies and building societies.
Abstract This paper describes why financial services companies are uniquely placed to use direct marketing and how they need to overcome a number of issues in order to maximise its potential. It weighs up practical limitations such as the Data Protection Act and industry regulations as well as examining softer issues such as the drawbacks of a traditional financial services culture and the need to protect credibility through maintaining sufficient levels of customer confidentiality and trust. A discussion of practical recommendations and how they can be best implemented explores possible solutions to the challenges. Keywords culture
Direct marketing, data, product development, communication, corporate
INTRODUCTION
Ryan Shannon Client Services Director, The Entire Company, Broad Quay House, Prince Street, Bristol BS1 4DJ, UK. Tel: +44(0) 1647 231 231; Fax: +44(0) 1647 231 023; e-mail: ryanshannon@ theentirecompany.com
Direct marketing is not only a way of marketing new products and services to customers, it is also a mechanism for companies to create a regular dialogue with customers in order to provide a flow of valuable and current data about behaviour and attitudes. It is this interaction that enables companies to develop a relationship with customers, which will in turn foster long-term brand loyalty. In theory, financial services companies should be the most sophisticated users of direct marketing. In practice, many companies are failing to capitalise on their potential advantage, and are lagging behind other sectors such as home shopping and publishing, when it comes to leveraging value from this channel to
# Henry Stewart Publications 1363-0539 (2002)
Vol. 7, 1, 75–79
market. The significant advantage that this sector has stems from the ‘intimate’ and often long-term nature of the relationships it has with customers. These types of businesses have the opportunity to collect highly detailed and personal information from their customers over a wide range of parameters — for instance, age or date of birth, marital status, salary and home ownership. Moreover, if asked to do so, most consumers would be happy to update this information at regular intervals, since they would see a direct relevance to service levels and product efficacy. As quality and accuracy of data are the foundation stones of effective direct marketing, financial services companies are, therefore, in a more advantageous position than many companies operating
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