Complain all you want about the Internet. Nothing tops direct mail when it comes to offending people. Just ask David and Lisa Barron, a couple cited in a recent piece on WMC TV.
The Barrons? special-needs daughter Madison Kate died in 1999 at age four. But the family still receives mailings addressed to her, and ?it?s always just on the right time schedule as far as what she would have been doing at that time in her life,? Lisa Barron told WMC-TV.
That?s as insensitive as it gets. The only comparable outrage occurred when a tobacco company mailed a late union leader ?years ago. The man had done anti-smoking commercials before dying of lung cancer.
How do these things happen? In the Barrons? case, it started when the family signed up for a baby food promotion. The firm ?stored Madison?s information and tracked it in order to send age-appropriate offers and sales pitches to the Barron home,? WMC reported.
Predictably, one observer blamed this on greed. ?We?re talking about a trillion dollar a year business,? this expert said. ?Money is what it?s all about.?
But let?s get real. There?s no profit in mailing dead people. And it can be easily avoided: As part of routine list hygiene, well-run firms scrub their lists against deceased files made up of death records, the Social Security Death Index and credit sources.
Sure, names can fall through the cracks. Most letters to children are addressed to their parents (they should be, anyway); if a child dies, that might not be flagged. And a toddler is unlikely to have a credit or Social Security imprint.
Still, a proper scrub would have prevented what happened to the Barrons. And that begs the larger question: Why did it take 13 years for the family to start getting off these lists? Were they given a chance to opt out?
That said, it doesn?t happen often. And this problem should fade away as companies move online. Someone who priced a product milliseconds ago and is now receiving a real-time display ad is obviously still living. And this kind of intent data is anonymous?there?s no personally identifiable information.
Source: http://tellallmarketing.com/blog/?p=2844
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