PM_220208_p031 20/2/08 13:00 Page 31
February 22 2008 PrecisionMarketing 31
ROnline Deport subjectata Cleaning Special Report
H130 An online
Standfirst in here. 19pt
Azbuka condensed light
on 20pt grid - vertically
aligned to the bottom.
Ex light
2mm right indent to run
solution
for as many lines as it
takes. preferably no more
than eight.
David Reed
We have
W
hat’s your first port of call if you need
to research, compare or buy any- come to
thing these days? Anybody over the
age of 35 will remember when you reached for expect the
a telephone directory or had to open a book.
For the Google generation, the Internet Internet to
holds all the answers. Indeed, they are likely to
feel frustrated if they can’t complete a task provide the
online. As it is in personal life, so it is increas-
ingly in the professional world. answer all
Why should marketers have to go through
the laborious process of dealing with people our
when they could be doing it via their PC? Espe-
cially when it comes to data cleaning – the car problems.
insurance of the direct marketing industry. As
a commodity chore which has to be done, there Data base to run data management, but equally individual records or entire databases with
is little to excite and every reason to find the
quickest and most convenient option. cleaning
insufficient budget to afford a database bureau. millions of records. This diversity of demand
SMEs find online data services particularly is an important benefit, but also a challenge.
That is where online data cleaning services
fit in. Since the main providers launched in is no
attractive because it means they do not have to Day estimates that to handle the volume of
apply expenditure to a task that is essentially activity currently going through the online
2002, they have steadily developed a market
worth an estimated £20m. But if you compared exception
about cost saving. Pay-as-you-go data cleaning service within the database bureau environ-
found a ready market in this sector. ment would require ten full-time staff. That is
the services available at launch six years ago Now things are moving on again. “Com- an indicator of the latent demand which these
with the same portals now, you would notice pared to our system two years ago, the current services have been able to tap into.
some critical differences. iteration has gone through a significant Terry Hiles, managing director of Capscan
Most notably, what you can do to and with upgrade. The core of it is cleaning, hosting and Ondemand, says the shift to online is only just
your data online has become more sophisti- supply of data,” says Day. The data supply ele- the beginning. “In our experience, the demand
cated. So is the inevitable development path for ment is already live and the hosting compo- tends to be for more than simply address clean-
these services a crossover into campaign man- nents are due for launch at this year’s IDMF. ing, just as our traditional bureau is being
agement tools? Or will the underlying basic The interface has also had a major asked to do more,” he says.
nature of data cleaning always limit how much makeover. Users of UK Changes Online can At the heart of this evolution is the legisla-
extra functionality can be incorporated? now decide which files to screen their data tion and regulation that applies to data. “There
“It has evolved,” says Steven Day, managing against, which order those files are applied is an aspect of compliance, but also of coercion.
director of UK Changes Online, which argues and what sequence to do the screening in via Let’s be honest – in the past, a number of
with Experian Intact over who was first to mar- simple drag and drop. organisations would have done the minimum
ket in 2002. “At that time, the Internet was in its Behind the scenes, sophisticated data pro- necessary,” he says.
infancy. We went online because of the intro- cessing is actually taking place in which each With the Information Commissioner mak-
duction of the Telephone Preference Service.” record is treated separately and put through ing it clear that he intends to get tough on com-
Following the launch of an opt-out from mar- the defined process. For users with less expe- panies that break the Data Protection Act,
keting calls in May 1999, companies using out- rience, a Quick Start option applies the sup- non-compliance is becoming less of an option.
bound telemarketing needed to screen their pressions in a sequence and hierarchy based The economic balance has also shifted.
files routinely before they were dialled. This on the company’s knowledge of best practice. “Companies used to look at the cost of sup-
created a ready market for online services. On top of that, users can now choose to pression against the cost of mailing to gone-
“We had a lot of small jobs for phone number enhance their data, for example by tele- aways and, in the past, financial services
screening,” recalls Day. appending phone numbers or applying geode- companies were guilty of saying the balance
At the same time, direct mail activity was mographic codes. was in favour of blanket bombing. Organisa-
growing strongly and was being adopted by The majority of users are running files in tions are now redressing that balance under
companies of all sizes. In the mid-market, there the tens of thousands, but they may also sit at pressure from the environmental lobby and
was often not the in-house resource and skills the extreme ends of the spectrum, cleaning regulation,” says Hiles.
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49