ISBA is closely involved in all the issues in the direct marketing arena from direct mail to call and contact centres to email marketing and more, but our main focus has been on the continuing reinvention of Royal Mail’s services in the face of competition in the postal market.
ISBA gave a robust response to Royal Mail’s Pricing in Proportion proposals during 2006, resulting in a much needed delay in implementation that gave our direct marketer members time to adjust. Following this, we also responded to Postcomm on the zonal pricing plans, highlighting the damage a further major change could do to direct marketers’ already hard pressed operations.
Paper-based direct marketing still constitutes a vital medium for many ISBA members and the ability to focus advertisers’ views in this area and reflect them to both postal operators and the regulator, delivers genuine results.
Nevertheless, environmental and sustainability issues are currently being felt more acutely in direct marketing than other areas of marketing communications. Because of government pressure, and a certain degree of public comment, the industry has had to act quickly and decisively to improve its green credentials.
ISBA has agreed to support, as a major founding sponsor, the creation of a BSI standard – the “Publicly Available Standard” (PAS) – for environmental good practice in direct marketing. When completed, it will be the first standard of its kind dedicated to marketing activity, unlike the other more general schemes and qualifications for environmental practice elsewhere. ISBA sees it as a vital tool for its members in looking to ensure their suppliers adopt best environmental practice.
ISBA’s Direct Marketing/Promoters Action Group is our key forum for discussing DM issues and the driving force behind ISBA policy in the area. Its membership includes those with strategic responsibility for direct marketing.
As well as lobbying regulators and government the group is constantly working to improve both the image and the execution of direct marketing in the UK. The Direct Marketing Action Group welcomes representatives from across our membership and has its own resource page here.
161 Kb | 8 Apr 2004
