JUNK mail, don’tcha hate it?
However, apparently, not everyone detests the unsolicited adverts that pour through our letter boxes. According to the Direct Marketing Association UK, people spend £25 billion annually on goods and services they hear
about through in the post.
The fact of the matter is there are people who will buy it regardless of whether you send mail to them or not, people who will buy it only if you send them mail and people who burn with rage when they get the mail and who will cancel any account they have with you for daring to intrude on them in such a manner. But how do you tell who is who?
Nick Radcliffe, an Edinburgh maths professor and entrepreneur, has developed a prize-winning method of making sure junk mail works. His clients are companies that regularly send out mailings to more than 15 million customers.
Radcliffe, founder of Stochastic Solutions (don’t ask, it’s to do with statistics), has developed “uplift modelling”. This identifies – through algorithms and such like – the customers who want the stuff, and avoids they people who really don’t.
Radcliffe said: “Blindly targeting all high-risk customers – unsurprisingly – drives a lot of them away.”
FACT OF THE DAY
23%THE percentage of people who will cut back on “luxuries” in order to make ends meet during the credit crisis, according to a survey at
Fairinvestment.co.ukThe poll also revealed that 16 per cent of participants propose to sacrifice a holiday, while 13 per cent plan to switch utility suppliers and 4 per cent will change their mobile phone contract. Yet 17 per cent of people said they do not plan to make any changes.
KILLER QUOTE"WE’RE approaching the second decade of [the] digital age. The internet has been operating now for ten years. The second ten years will be very different.”
Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, in talks with Lee Myung-bak, president of South Korea, on information technology for vehicles and games and the future of the internet.
GOOD DAY
VodafoneVODAFONE scored its first deal to sell Apple’s iPhone after the mobile phone giant lost out to O2 to sell it in the UK. Vodafone has been competing to secure the right to sell the iPhone. It will now sell the device in ten countries, but not the UK.
BAD DAY
Airbus EUROPE’S largest plane manufacturer warned Emirates there may be further delays in the delivery of the A380, the world’s largest passenger aircraft. Emirates, which is the biggest A380 customer, having ordered 58 planes, said the situation was “very serious”.
The full article contains 453 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
