Data Management — Takin’ Care of Info

NAME, STREET address, city, state and ZIP code. OK, so you know where the end user lives; heck, the direct mail piece may actually end up in his/her hands. But while the piece may have made its destination, did the print buyer truly deliver with its message? And did you, the printer, help ensure that this message went to a recipient that gives a hoot about your client’s product or service?

Frankly, if your message whiffs on the intended audience count, it doesn’t matter if the mailed piece even knows how to ring the recipient’s doorbell.

“No matter how good the direct mail piece or how well we use variable data, it still fails if we’re mailing it to people who have no interest in the product or service,” notes Al Kennickell, president of Kennickell Print and Global Marketing of Savannah, GA.

“In the old days, we were asked to print a product and deliver it. We didn’t really think about how well that product or brochure did. Frankly, we didn’t care too much because we weren’t in the mix.Now, we have a vested interest in making sure that when campaigns go out in the mail, they get better than a 2 percent response rate. As a result, we’re trying to learn as much as we can about databases and data management because our success is dependent upon the results we generate for clients.”

Marketing Services

In truth, Kennickell says, his company has become a marketing services company. Management of one-to-one marketing campaigns and the beauty of personalized digital printing are all part of a day’s work for the modern print provider.

It’s all about managing data, though we’re loathe to call it database management. It’s really the information that is being coddled and manipulated; frankly printers are really only borrowing the data from their print buying customers in order to process and deliver the marketing campaign.

Enough hair splitting. What most people can agree on is the high degree of value offered by direct mail printers that have partnered with their clients, of sorts, to enable them to generate the best and most targeted print marketing campaigns possible.

At Carlsbad, CA-based Modern Postcard, value is delivered by helping customers understand and manage their data through a consultative approach. A suite of services offered by Modern Postcard enhances the client’s ability to utilize data for retaining current customers while providing knowledge that opens the door to acquiring new work, notes Keith Goodman, vice president of corporate solutions.

A second set of tools encompasses list hygiene services intended to scrub away outdated, incomplete and incorrect information, with the intent of raising deliverability of the list while reducing waste in postal fees. Modern Postcard also provides list acquisition services that identify quality prospects for a given client’s products and services.

“We work closely with customers in helping them better understand their existing customers using analytics and profiling,” Goodman says. “In addition, we offer appending services with up to 200 demographic and lifestyle fields available. We then assist (clients) in list selection based upon the profile of their most profitable customers.”

For IWCO Direct of Chanhassen, MN, value comes in the form of using information in customer databases to drive complex, one-to-one messaging in their direct mail programs. Like Modern Postcard, data cleansing is another major tool that IWCO Direct brings to the table, according to Jim Andersen, president and CEO.

“A key area of focus is encouraging customers to use high-quality addresses to improve response rates and ROI,” Andersen notes. “In addition, we provide assistance with creative development, messaging, targeting and in-home predictability to ensure higher open and response rates.”

Ensuring Delivery

High-quality addresses are moving targets. In order to ensure their accuracy, Andersen’s shop relies on the many tools available aimed at keeping lists relevant. IWCO Direct is a National Change of Address (NCOA) link provider that also uses non-USPS information sources to eliminate the dreaded Undeliverable as Addressed (UAA) mail. The printer also provides standard Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS), Locatable Address Conversion System (LACS) and Delivery Point Validation (DPV) services.

Clients of Sunrise, FL-based Rex Three tend to view their printer as a “black box,” where a task is deposited in one end and the desired result comes out the other, reports Vincent Sita, vice president of manufacturing. That is especially true for data management, for which Rex Three has become a marketing assistant for its customers.

What really helps link printer to print buyer is the former’s ability to add substance to the latter’s data collection. The printer can act as a marketer and, in essence, bridge the gap between something as impersonal as a mailing address with something as quirky, finicky and unique as an individual.

“Many (clients) don’t know what data is available,” Sita says. “One of the more interesting aspects of one-to-one marketing and concepts of personalized landing pages is that customers often don’t have the data that can make a program relevant.

“They often have basic data like name, address and contact information,” he adds. “That’s not nearly enough information to make a program relevant. We create a campaign allowing them to ask some seemingly innocuous questions to find out (the end user’s) lifestyle choices and habits: favorite colors, music, genres, what they like to do in their spare time, etc. Based on that info, we can make their mailing piece or landing page more customized, and the piece is more likely to stay on their desk as opposed to being thrown in the trash.”

Kennickell agrees that clients tend not to have comprehensive information captured in their databases. The basic information will suffice for static printing, but it will take personal URLs (PURLs) and other data collecting methods to garner information that can produce more effective personalized mailing campaigns.

“If you control the data, you control the customer,” he says. “We’re developing a lot of tools—everything from variable data printing to PURLs. We understand data a lot better than we did two years ago. It’s more of a gray matter investment than a financial one.” PI

Security Breach Mars Mailers

A teacher files suit over the release of social security numbers in Chicago through a direct mail campaign, thus exposing recipients to possible identity theft. Another printer is on the hook for big bucks after it accidently added a zero to a casino’s promotional mail offering.

The state of Wisconsin clumsily sends a tax form mailing job to its vendor, with social security numbers in an incorrectly marked field. The resulting mailing causes another identity theft security breach that leaves a respected printer with an undeserved black eye and $220,000 in liability on a $22,000 job.

Welcome to the data managing jungle.

Managing data can be very rewarding for a printer and its direct mail marketing client, particularly when variable data and one-to-one personalization are leveraged to produce targeted campaigns with higher than expected response rates. But mishandling of data can have dangerous consequences for all parties involved, including the end user, opening the door to lawsuits and recompense to cover the cost of personal credit monitoring services.

One guess as to who ends up shouldering the blame...

“Some guy probably making $18 an hour just misunderstood something,” said Al Kennickell, president of Kennickell Print and Global Marketing, of the casino incident. “And, boom, millions are lost. The customer made them pay and the printer had to file for bankruptcy.”

Kennickell Print doesn’t have any clients who database sensitive information. ISO 9000 certified since 1994, the printer has a very methodical and procedural-intensive formula for moving mail jobs through the plant.

“We do everything in our power to make sure we’re not dependent upon somebody to remember to do something,” Kennickell says. “It’s all in writing, done by the book, and it works very effectively for us.”

Certain print buyers, including banks and other financial institutions, have strict guidelines as to what information can be released and make printers go through extensive interviews and audits before awarding jobs, notes Vincent Sita, vice president of manufacturing for Rex Three. As a result, Rex Three has modeled its own set of checks and balances similarly and possesses an internal procedure that would pass any test.

“Good housekeeping is important—where you store your files on your file server, how you name different things,” he says. “A very good tip is to automate where you can automate. If you have some kind of in-house programming capabilities, analyze what has to be done day in and day out, and figure out how to automate it, so that the chances of human error become less.”

Measures for protecting data generally fall under three categories at IWCO Direct: the physical security of the facility; the technical security involved with handling and storing customer data; and established, documented procedures to ensure that access to data is on a need-to-have basis. Jim Andersen, president and CEO, underscores staff awareness of the consequences of mishandling data.

For some printers, a client’s primary security needs arise from competitive considerations. Keith Goodman, vice president of corporate solutions for Modern Postcard, notes that customer files are kept on secured servers with limited access for employees. Barring a specific request from clients, customer data files are deleted following mailing campaigns.

Feeling Fat, Safe and Secure

Seven areas of focus used by IWCO Direct to ensure data security and integrity:

• Data encryption is used for data transmissions, data at rest and backup media.

• Security awareness entails keeping employees informed about how they can assist in ensuring that the printer’s security practices are followed, and providing information about new threats.

• Network architecture keeps the network environment secure from outside threats, including intrusion detection, firewalls and systems management, among others.

• Data access and handling practices prohibit access to those who do not require it. Includes the control, labeling and disposition of data from the standpoint of both electronic media and hard copy.

• Physical controls are in place such as video monitoring equipment and limiting access to areas containing data.

• Identifying and controlling threats along with procedures for monitoring threats and documented action plans if a threat is encountered.

• Business continuity includes review of continuity practices and disaster recovery readiness.