Firstly, let’s make one thing clear. Data suppression is not the same as data cleaning. The techniques may be similar, but it’s the intention behind the process and not the process itself which is important. At its simplest, cleaning is the removal of wrong information from data yes, it involves reformatting, standardisation and de-duplication, but the bottom line is, it rids the database of errors. Suppression assumes an error-free database and identifies contacts who are not interested in receiving marketing communications, meaning the rest may be. Cleaning ensures marketing communications arrive with a minimum of gone-aways; suppression ensures such communications are received by those most likely to respond.
So why do so few B2B marketers use suppression? There appear to be five main reasons:
1. Confusion between suppression and cleaning
Many marketers consider suppression as a sub-set of cleaning. Certainly many techniques are similar, but cleaning is about the accuracy of data whereas suppression is about its use. Any data handler can improve the accuracy of data and append helpful information to records, but only marketers can decide who their campaign is aimed at and who should be contacted.
The waters are muddied by legal requirements associated with data use. For data to be used legally it needs to be matched against records held by the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) and the Fax Preference Service (FPS). Although this is technically suppression, some bureaux class this as part of their cleaning service to ensure clients remain within the law.
The confusion between suppression and cleaning is not helped by the Royal Mail Business Changes File (RMBCF) being marketed as a suppression file. It holds the widest level of changes, due to businesses moving. Information on businesses’ change of addresses is invaluable to B2B marketers, but this is still data cleaning rather than suppression.
2. Lack of understanding about how it works
Although adherence to CTPS and FPS are legal requirements, bureaux often find it difficult particularly with CTPS to do so automatically. For example, marketers may contact a particular company by post, and then choose to make a follow-up phone call to those recipients who respond. Even if the company has registered with CTPS, the follow-up call is legal because the company has responded.
Nick Frazer, head of B2B marketing at Experian, says, This kind of marketing situation makes it difficult for owners of databases to suppress telephone information automatically. Many data owners leave it to their clients the end users of the data to decide whether to adhere to CTPS or not. Those selling databases need to educate marketers about CTPS, and many don’t go into the consequences with marketers if they ignore it. The DMA and some suppliers offer relevant training, but most professional educators appear to concentrate on suppression in the consumer market.
Particularly vulnerable are SMEs, which tend to overlook legalities such as CTPS. Kim Barlow, head of data planning at Tidalwave, says, A survey of small businesses that Mardev carried out found that only 52 per cent of interviewees knew about CTPS. Yet the same research showed that 73 per cent used the phone to generate new business.
3. Difficulty identifying good suppression services
Suppression suffers from the chicken and egg syndrome. Marketers don’t place enough emphasis on suppression so data handlers don’t invest in it, which means that good suppression files are scarce so marketers can’t find them.
Vic Godding, owner of Developing Data, says, We created a consortium that designed and produced the original business suppression file. All the data providers were high profile and we also included a range of different areas of operation in order to maximise coverage. Everyone agreed it was comprehensive, good value and easy to use. Yet after four years of operation the product failed through a lack of user commitment.
Not everyone thinks that an independent and comprehensive suppression file is the way forward. Marcus Oxlade, product development manager at the Read Group, explains, Marketers will choose to do different things with their data. Some do suppression internally and budget has a lot of influence.
4. Cost
No customer likes to pay more for less, and anything that the data owner has to do to the database will incur a cost. Frazer says, Clients may find that they are paying more for information to be suppressed. Often this is the reason why suppression is not done automatically. Yet considered correctly, suppression prevents marketers wasting time and resources by ensuring that they only contact potential customers who are likely to respond favourably. The larger initial cost should result in much greater ROI.
Suppression has two levels of complexity. Marketers can either simply exclude particular companies from the marketing process, or can use a series of flags to record certain information about particular companies which can be used in the selection process. As a general rule of thumb The Read Group charges agencies about 30p per record for simple suppression, while more complex flagging costs about 60p per record. Direct clients should be able to negotiate a lower annual licence fee for suppression services.
5. No overwhelming reason to use suppression
With the exception of CTPS and FPS, suppression is not a legal requirement. Frazer says, Marketers often overlook or forget FPS. This is worrying as faxing is nearly as cheap as email and the industry is seeing a slight upsurge in fax requirements.
DMA members must adhere to DMA codes of conduct, as Godding explains. Penalties to members are severe, but the limitation is to members and as such it is not all encompassing. One way forward is for marketers to make clear that they expect a subcontracting non-DMA member to abide by the association’s code of conduct; the DM Authority can then penalise for misconduct.
The taboo against marketing to the deceased also does not carry the same weight in the B2B arena. Tony Lamb, head of data development for Royal Mail, explains, In a business context, unlike in the consumer environment, individuals have no right to privacy. This is why there is no sense of infringing personal privacy in the same way that there could be in the B2C market.
If marketers have little motivation to police themselves, fear of independent penalisation provides no stronger reason. Kirsty McKinney, brand manager at Market Location, says, Real penalties for non-compliance appear to be toothless, so it is not surprising that some see no reason to comply. However if penalties continue not to be enforced there will come a time when central government is obliged to take harsher action against the industry in response to business owners’ concerns raised through their perceptions of junk mail.
Some companies are introducing their own measures to ensure that their data is not misused. Frazer adds, Some dadta owners seed their data to check how it is being used. Seeding is a good way of tracking abuse in the system and also protects the data owners’ assets.
Sit up and take notice
Suppression helps marketers to get better results at less cost, but they don’t seem to be listening, says Oxlade. It’s a case of convincing them that an initial cost can provide an eventual saving.
Better understanding of the issues around suppression could be achieved by nominating an individual to take responsibility for understanding the law, educating colleagues, and advising on and monitoring its usage. When it comes to smaller companies, for which creating such a role may not be feasible, checking with the local Chamber of Commerce or a small business forum could help.
Despite a preference for the industry to remain self-regulating, many believe that more legislation will be introduced, possibly with tougher penalties although whether such penalties will be enforced is impossible to predict.
As Frazer concludes, B2C marketing is developing true permission-based marketing, so marketers are only talking to customers about the things they themselves have selected. B2B marketing is ten years behind consumer marketing, but is going the same way. The aim of every marketer is not to waste time and resources on people who are just not interested. Suppression is an important tool in furthering that aim.
