Saturday, November 24, 2007
Chapter 7
I really enjoyed this chapter because I found it very useful. It explains how marketers get and use your personal information, and even explains a number of steps that can be taken to reduce the amount of junk mail and telemarketing phone calls that one receives. The author stresses the importance of tighter legislation against marketing firms, and protecting individuals on do not call or do not mail lists. I am not 100% on this but I think that some laws may have changed since this book was written. I know that I have registered my phone number on the national do not call list (www.donotcall.gov if you’re interested) but I am unsure as to what penalties exist if a marketer still calls me, I’ll bet it isn’t much and it would probably end up being more work for me than it is worth. There should be a law that before any marketing firm mails or calls an individual they must check the phone number or address against the do not call/mail lists and face strict penalties for noncompliance. I’ll admit that every now and then I will receive a good coupon in the mail and I’ll use it, but the amount of junk mail far outweighs the wanted mail. What about the effects that mailing out millions of letters of which 99% are thrown out has on the environment? What about the millions of dollars that companies spend to mail out their ads, costs that are undoubtedly passed on to the consumer? Do you want to pay for this mail? Most forms of marketing are inefficient by nature and bad for society, a little bit of marketing to keep consumers informed is ok but I have to admit things are getting out of control.
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2 comments:
You are most likely right on the amount of work it would take for you to punish those that called you even if you are on the do not call list. I’m sure it is a lot of work and even if the company does get fined, I would be willing to bet it is only pennies to them. It won’t be before long that everyone will be sick of getting calls and companies will realize that cold calling is only hurting the sale of its product. I know that if a company illegally called me after being placed on the do not call list, I would never buy its product.
I totally agree with your argument on the added costs to the environment and consumers. I like how a lot of banks have given the option of banking only online instead of receiving statements in the mail. This saves them money and cuts down on wasted paper. If people want advertisements or coupons, they should be able to “opt in” for them online and receive those coupons over email. This will save the ad agency money and reduce waste paper. You are also right about added costs to the consumer. If these agencies adopted a policy of “opt in” instead of “opt out,” they would be able to directly market to the consumers that cared and save the consumers money in the end.
As consumers, we will always pay for the additional costs that go in to promoting products. However, I am not sure what is more expensive, sending out mass mail hoping for individuals to bite or businesses investing in gathering primary data that segments the market that they can market to directly. Primary data is very expensive and I imagine that doing mass mailings is cheaper and might even get similar results. However, I eventually think that mail will go to the wayside and we will find something else to complain about marketing efforts.
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