California New Privacy Law

Notice to Marketers:  California has a new privacy law that took effect January 1, 2020

This law grants consumers a right to request companies that are in the business of selling data to disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal information that is collected about the consumer. It grants the consumer the right to request deletion of personal information and requires the business to delete their information upon request. Failure to respond could result in penalties.

"Personal information" means information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household. Personal information includes, but not limited to using a real name, alias, online identifier,  postal address, email address, etc.

The bill, however, specifically allows use of personal information that is gathered from "publicly available information". 

DBS is in the business of selling data for use in advertising goods and services. This data is obtained through a variety of sources - most comes from public data and others is inferred or obtained by other self-reported sources.

To comply with this, a suppression file would need to be created of people who make this request. We would have to rely on each client to keep a file of people requesting to be taken off a list and suppress from each mailing. 

Because we do not believe a suppression list could be maintained without error, we will change our practices, for the time being, to be in compliance by selling lists for mailing in California that are addressed only to "Resident" rather than a specific name. 

We value our California clients and hope implementation of this law does not affect your marketing efforts. Please reach out for any questions or follow-up on this issue. 

DBS - Helping you mail better and smarter

Go to this link to read the language in the full bill,  California Privacy Law 2020

Are you getting the best postage rates?

The best postage rates - Automation and Presort - for large volume mailings require certification that your mailing list has been matched against NCOA (National Change of Address) within 95 days of mailing.  If you do not have this certification, the only way you will still get the best postage rates is to have "Or Current Resident" below the person's name.

What is NCOA ?   When people move, they fill out (or should anyway) a Change of Address (COA) form for the Post Office so that their 1st Class mail gets forwarded to the new address. Your mailing list is matched against the Change of Address (COA) records that will indicate COA orders sent to the U.S. Postal Service by individuals, families, and businesses.   Luckily, most  lettershops run mailing lists through a NCOA process prior to mailing, but not all do - this is something you should verify with your lettershop.

Why does the Post Office require NCOA matching?  According to their statistics, 45 million people move every year.  No matter how often a mailing list is updated, there will always be a certain percentage of your mailing that reaches households where people have moved.  Plain and simple - delivering mail to addresses where people have moved costs the Post Office money.  And, ultimately, it costs you a lot of money as well - producing a mail piece, paying for printing and postage for something that might not ever be delivered if the person who is on the address label have moved.  Best case is that if mailed 1st class, the mail will be forwarded.  But, is it best for you to have mail forwarded to someone that may have moved to a whole new area?  Or is it best for your mail piece to get to the people who are currently living at the address. 

If you are mailing something that is subscription or member based, it would be best to have the mail follow the person who moved.  But, the majority of mailings are intended to reach a base of people living within a geographic area and even if the person whose name is on the mail piece moved, it would be better for the mail piece to stay at the address rather than being undelivered or forwarded.

 Should "Or Current Resident" be on your address label?

Won't putting "Or Current Resident" make my mailing look like junk mail?  The only real answer to this is to test it.  In my opinion however, if your offer or message is relevant to a specific geographic area, it will rarely matter unless it is something formal like an invitation.

The question you should be asking yourself is..... is it more important for my mail piece to be delivered to a specific address that is in my geographic area - or is it more important that the mail piece follow the person regardless of where they live.

You can read more about NCOA and Move Update requirements at:  USPS - Guide to Move Update

DBS can help you mail smarter -- call us to see how we can help.

When Customers Want Their Name Off a Mailing List

I recently had a client that contacted me wanting to know how to respond to a phone call they had from someone that received their mailer - upset that they were receiving the mail and worried that their personal information was being shared.

As I told my client, "there will always be people who will complain about the things that get mailed to them - and they are rightfully concerned about lack of privacy - especially in these days of identity theft.    Just because she has received mail from you and from others, does not mean that her private information about her health problems was leaked by the health institutions". 

Most mailing lists comes from public records - like home ownership records and US Postal records - but lists  also come from the census bureau, telephone directories and other places where they may have even given information themselves - like signing up for a free registration, magazine subscription, or a product purchase.  The credit bureaus track purchases and sometimes mailings are received merely because the mailing is going to every resident - regardless of any thing going on with them personally.

People can limit the mail that comes to their house by registering with the DMA (Direct Mail Association).  The DMA maintains a list of people who do not want their names on direct mail offerings.   Most legitimate list compilers bounce their mailing lists against this file routinely and should reduce the amount of mail they receive.  This is one of the best reasons why I routinely recommend that companies let me run their own internal files against the DMA lists to flag people who do not want to receive mail - and this also removes deceased names.

No company wants to spend money mailing to people who have no interest in their product or service. 

Here is a link to the DMA that explains almost everything you would need to know about getting your name removed from mailing lists:

http://www.dmaconsumers.org/offmailinglist.html#6

The DMA - Direct Mail Association

Ordering Medical Lists? Things To Know.

 There are many things to consider when ordering any list, but medical lists have some unique things to consider.  Some questions to ask yourself:

When is it a bad thing to NOT be on a mailing list?

When it is your own project - that is probably the one time you actually want to be on a mailing list.  We just completed a project for a client who had us obtain a mailing list for them that was pretty broad based and her name was not on the list that she ordered and she questioned why wasn't it there - it should have been, according to her.  Since her name didn't show up, she wondered whether the list was even good at all - after all, if it was any good, her name would be there.

Well, the bottom line is that the list compilers don't know everything about everyone (contrary to popular belief).  The names on a mailing list come from a variety of places - from directories, telephone and utility hookups, warranty registrations, subscriptions, purchases etc.   Does it mean the list choice was a bad one -- not at all - especially if it meets the criteria and quantity that the project calls for.