I think I can safely say that the last 12 to 18 months have been difficult for most businesses. At the beginning of the downturn, SPA members were largely optimistic about the future and not without good reason – it’s entirely logical to surmise that suppression would boom in a downturn.

After all, it is effective way of increasing ROI and savings for the end user and it drives revenue for resellers. Despite this, 2009 was not the boom year for suppression that many had originally predicted and no-one has felt this more than the data bureaux battling it out on the frontline.

In order for us to weather the current financial storm, we need to understand why things have been so tough for those of us offering suppression services. Perhaps it’s because companies are more focused on surviving and have put good data strategy at the bottom of their boardroom agendas. Or it could be that data volumes have fallen to their lowest level for 20 years?

SPA, which was set up a couple of years ago to both promote and demystify suppression, has continued with its audit programme (both overt and covert) that have identified that clients and resellers have very different perceptions about where suppression sits within the marketing mix. The latest audits show that misunderstanding and confusion still prevail among those bureaux audited.

It was found that the staff responsible for compiling the royalty reports had insufficient help and best practice guidelines from suppression providers. It is therefore of little surprise to find that most of the bureaux audited were found to have mistakes (some large, some small) in their reporting.

SPA recognises that there needs to be greater uniformity in both terminology and practice from your data suppliers and that we need to strive to encourage a higher level of engagement when it comes to providing royalty reports. Ultimately, it is never too late to update and improve your suppression practices. As has always been the case, good data strategy will save you money, protect your brand and enhance you relationship with your clients.

By Colin Lloyd, chairman of the Suppression Providers Alliance

Lets hope this publication, an institution in it’s own right, can be turned around and re-branded if necessary. Whilst the £125m deficit in it’s pension fund is a major factor in bringing the company to its knees, could it have operated more efficiently as a business in the first place?

‘The magazine also became associated with free gifts – from pens and alarm clock radios to encyclopaedias – as it looked to lure new readers. However, Reader’s Digest has failed to shake off its image as a publication favoured by older people and in dentists’ and doctors’ waiting rooms. Despite attempts to modernise, including launching an online edition, its readership in the UK has fallen dramatically from about two million in the 1990s. “In many cases its readers have been, quite literally, dying off, and nobody has been replacing them,” said BBC correspondent Nick Higham. “And the underlying business, like lots of other magazines has struggled, as people bought fewer of them as they migrated to the internet. That has made life very difficult.” As reported on the BBC news channel, 17/2/10.

Could the records held by the company have been put to better use with more use made of data cleansing and suppression bureaus? Often overlooked as a method for reducing company cost, data cleansing should be initiated at the start of any costs saving exercise. It is criminal how much miss-directed direct mail falls on the door mat, residential and corporate. Apart from the environmental impact which is now a major topic of conversation the man hours spent dealing with the knock on effect, mail rooms, IT dept’s, etc is very  costly to business.