The End of Wasteful Spending

As the “Digital Age” progresses we continue to expect more from the companies that we engage with. As consumers, investors and people we expect our corporations to; cut costs, increase efficiencies, and eliminate waste. However it appears that we are not quite there, YET. A recent report entitled “The Road Not Yet Taken” released by the Sustainable Enterprise Institute (SEI), found that a mere 125 companies within the Russell 1000 Index have an executive-level committee responsible for corporate social responsibility or environmental, health and safety oversight. Only 5% have a “C” Level executive directly responsible for the oversight such efforts. Out of the 1,000 companies in the Russell Index, nearly 60% have a company-wide environmental policy; a good start….but the report also notes that there is a lack of formalized documentation and most of the policies lack substance and are only present on the company website.

So where should these companies look for such leadership? How about CMO’s? It’s a no brainer….not only can your marketing team help convey the message in regards to corporate social responsibility, they can also make the most immediate impact. How so? Simple…Every day I receive paper based marketing materials from companies trying to earn my business or trying to do more business with me. Some are just plain old wasteful, here are two great examples:

Cable Provider:
My Cable Company has my email address; I know this because they send me my Bill via email each month. Even with this information, they choose not to deliver marketing messages to my email address; they’d rather bombard me with Direct Mail monthly. I would prefer they email me; however they have never asked, and don’t seem too concerned with my preferences.

Clothing Retailer:
I have purchased, suits, ties, shirts you name it from a well known clothing retailer. They have a loyalty program for which I have provided my email address. However, like clockwork I get not only email messages about upcoming sales etc…I also receive the same information in my mailbox. Again no one asked my preference, and none of the communications are relevant to me. Just plain vanilla messaging; sent to the masses, even though they know exactly what, when and where I made my purchases.

If you look at the examples above and do some basic math, it’s fairly easy to see that there are companies out there literally wasting millions of dollars on direct mail, catalog’s etc…When they could be using digital technology to:

• Cut Costs:
  Let’s be EXTREMELY generous and assume your Direct Mail costs on average are .20¢ per piece…you have a database of 1 Million customers. You mail to that database 24 times per year. That will cost you $4.8 Million per year. Compare that to email at a $2CPM, which will cost a GRAND total of $48,000. Enough said…I won’t even begin to breakdown the cost saving for a digital catalog vs. print but it’s equally as staggering.
• Go Green:
  Here’s the best part, not only did you manage to cut more than $4 Million dollars from the budget, at the same time you are taking part in the “Green Movement”. Sounds like a home run to me! Save money, go green and enhance your corporate image in regards to the environment and sustainability. What’s not to love?
• Become More Relevant:
  Part of going Digital will be investing in the required infrastructure as well as technologies. I can only assume that companies sending me irrelevant communications are doing so primarily because they have disparate database’s that do not talk to one another. I would hate to think that it is due to sheer complacency. So with some much needed investment into a Data Warehouse solution and the appropriate digital technologies, you can not only save money and go green you can also make your marketing communications more effective.

That kinda seems like Nirvana to me…However I’m not so naïve as to think that Direct Mail will vanish forever. However it will certainly not get any better, with a proposed 5 day delivery week and increasing postage and paper costs. There still will be a place for it, hopefully just a much smaller place. So it would seem that if you want your company to make an impact as it pertains to sustainability, your marketing team is the first place you should look for help. This is not a pipe dream, the tools and technologies are available TODAY, money is always the number #1 motivator and the writing is on the wall…now it’s just a matter of time. Which way are you going?

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