Charities guilty of list abuse
Howard Lake | 28 June 2007 | News
The charity sector is one of the worst offenders at misusing and abusing marketing lists according to a new study.
The annual survey by data value management specialists DQM Group says that the charity sector last year was one of the most compliant sectors when it came to list licence adherence. A year on, the sector now features among the top five worst offenders.
The study says that third sector organisations have sophisticated direct marketing activities which gives them no excuse for citing naivety or inexperience as contributing factors. It says that if the sector continues to abuse list licences it could lead to an official enquiry.
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Data abuse is a growing problem in the UK, but misuse of lists reduces response rates and increases consumer dissatisfaction of dm from ‘overmarketing’ and use of out-of-date data.
Adrian Gregory, managing director of DQM Group, said the problems could largely be attributed to two factors. Lists are ‘seeded’ with names and addresses which are ‘tracked’ so that list owners can see when and where they have been used. Gregory said some list owners could be more rigorous in how they manage their data, making better use of the tracking available. He said there are still some list owners who do not use any tracking devices.
Sometimes misuse of data is down to the end user not realising when a licence has ended or including the data in its own database and being unable to identify the licensed names.
This is the second year DQM has produced the survey, which will now be an annual undertaking.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.