US Businesses Losing Revenue on Irrelevant Mail
Friday, 10 November 2006
As a result of inaccurate data, the average business could be wasting more than $180,000 per year by sending out direct mail that is not relevant or does not reach the intended recipient, according to findings from global data quality research commissioned by QAS, an Experian company.
The QAS survey, conducted by independent research organization Dynamic Markets, found that the average annual cost of returned mail was more than $9,000 per company. The research also found that recipients return mail they consider irrelevant approximately five percent of the time. This means that for every piece of mail returned, a staggering 20 pieces are thrown away. Based on this fact, returned mail represents just five percent of the true cost, therefore the average business could be wasting as much as $180,000 per year on unwanted mail.
"The fact that very little mail is returned to the sender gives organizations a false impression that all their mail is read and accepted. More often than not, it is thrown out," said Jonathan Hulford-Funnell, chief operating officer at QAS, an Experian Company. "All this discarded mail is clearly a huge waste of time and money."
The research also identified that business professionals receive a high volume of this unwanted mail. Globally, the average business professional receives over 2,400 pieces of mail per year that are correctly addressed to them but considered irrelevant to their jobs. In the United States, the figure is below the global average, but US business professionals still receive approximately 1,500 pieces of unwanted mail per person annually. Additionally, US professionals each year receive more than 280 pieces of mail per person that are intended for previous employees.
Only 44 percent of the global businesses surveyed could cite a figure for the amount of mail sent per year, and a mere 12 percent could estimate the cost of their returned business-to-business mail. Because so few businesses monitor the volume of mail sent or returned, they have no real insight into how much money is wasted or the potential damage done to their brand reputations. It also means they are not getting a true view of the success of their communications.
"Organizations can not afford to ignore this problem," continued Hulford-Funnell. "Advanced address verification solutions can help reduce the high volume of returned mail by ensuring the accuracy of organizations' data. Clean data means communications reach their intended recipients and allows for other tactics, such as data suppression and customer segmentation, that ensure the target audience is reached."
Worst Offenders and Shining Stars
Global respondents were asked to rank the industry sectors that send the highest volumes of unwanted mail. Promotional gifts (37 percent), retail (35 percent) and publications (34 percent) were listed as the worst offenders. Alternatively, mail from business service organizations (25 percent), financial services companies (21 percent) and corporate event organizers (15 percent) was regarded as more relevant to the recipient businesses.