LAST week the quality national press, this newspaper included, carried a series of ads from the Royal Mail touting the benefits of direct marketing campaigns. This might seem odd: most readers of the quality press don't go around buying direct marketing campaigns - they're more likely to be on the receiving end.
In fact, this particular campaign is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, which the Royal Mail reckons is an area with plenty of growth potential. For, according to the latest survey of Britain's 100 biggest consumer goods advertisers, more than two-thirds increased their direct marketing budgets last year.
This is a big money business: a fifth spend more than £5m a year on direct marketing and 43pc spend more than £1m. What does this buy them? Well, roughly speaking, including design, print and postage costs, each piece of direct mail costs less than 20p, so a £1m budget can mean at least 5m items.
Advertisers like direct marketing because, by using their own databases or buying them in, they can use it to target market segments more precisely.
Boots, for example, this week mailed 1.5m women who are on its Advantage Card loyalty scheme database. Using the information on their purchasing patterns gathered by the cards, each woman will receive one of four different mailings from Boots.
Now this may conjure up visions of British households under attack from tons of junk mail but since direct mail is about precise targeting, the term itself misses the point.
Good direct marketing ultimately depends on the accurate collection and manipulation of data on individuals (known in the trade as data mining). Here, as the issue of privacy rises up the agenda, it is possible that society and the industry may be heading in different directions.
Short term, the industry is closely watching the progress of the Data Protection Bill. For the most part, this holds few fears for advertisers. But there are two areas of concern. One is in the use of lifestyle surveys, where respondents often give information about partners and children - information which is then used without their knowledge or consent.
The second is the growing use by marketing companies of electoral register roll lists. Some believe this information should not be available to third parties, while the industry claims it needs it to check name and address details to make sure mailings are accurate.
This is crucial: direct mail only becomes junk when it's inaccurate.
