KEY POINTS:
Christmas is approaching and thoughts turn to business relationships.
Customer databases are being turned into Christmas card lists, arcane calculations are being made as to whether one customer should get a beach umbrella or another the desk set.
Things that were in the 'to do' file suddenly have to be done, yesterday, if deadlines are to be met.
Deidre Ross, the general manager of mail fulfillment company Mailshop, says the last quarter of the year gets frantic as the final direct marketing pushes of the year overlap with the mailing out of millions of corporate Christmas cards, gifts and invitations to end of year functions.
"We do 40 per cent of our turnover in these three months, with another peak around Easter," Ross says.
While a lot of effort can be put into the development of the printed material, it's often the mailing lists themselves where the problems crop up.
Lists drawn from contact databases or customer relationship management systems need to be purged and post coded.
"The postal coding scenario is a mammoth task for the customer, because if you are mailing out to more than 1000 people, you need the proper post codes to get the discounts from New Zealand Post," Ross says.
Fortunately New Zealand Post is still accepting the old post codes this season.
Firms can wait until the New Year to go through their databases and switch to the new post codes and address standards. That will be a significant IT project for many firms, and could show up the deficiencies in many customer management systems.
"We are telling clients not to panic, they have nearly two years to make the transition," Ross says.
She says clients seem more organised this year, and most have booked their jobs well in advance.
"The data is a mixed bag. Some is clean, some needs lots of work."
Mailshop runs the lists through a range of tools, matching names against New Zealand Post's database of new movers, the gone no addresses, the Direct Marketing Association's list of people who don't want to receive unsolicited mail.
It can also pull information out of the data to personalise the communications.
"We can clean up the data and report back the the customer, so they can update their own systems. We can also monitor returned, so we do the return on investment study."
Ross says while much of the work is large runs, they are also able to handle small volumes.
"Anything over 1000 would give you a reasonably good discount in bulk mailing, but if you are doing this at home or in a small business, you know that anything over 500 is a pain in the neck to process. We're even doing a job at the moment for a list of 20."
As well as cards, gifts have become big business.
Mike Williamson from TLC Marketing says when his company started selling corporate gifts 10 years ago, firms might give a bottle of wine to favoured customers or suppliers.
Now a wide variety of products, branded and unbranded, get shoved in the stocking.
"We usually clear out our showroom in Eden Terrace about August or September and put up the range so people can come and choose," Williamson says.
More than half the items get branded, but by this time of the year it may take up to three weeks to get a logo or message printed or embroidered on the item.
"There seems to be a trend towards not branding, particularly with items of a perceived higher value. A customer may not use a hammock or picnic bag is it has a logo all over it.
"It comes down to the relationship our customers have with their customers."
Williamson says there seems to be competition to find the next best gift.
"For some firms the gift is quite a big part of the annual marketing spend, so if they do a large item, the next year they look for something as big or better, as expectations increase."
Gifts can range from items under $10 to several hundred dollars.
"We sometimes see multiple tiers. Some customers may get something costing less than $10. There will be another tier at $20 or so, some at $50, and a few key suppliers or customers get something worth $200."
Popular items include leisure products which people can use over the summer, IT products, including a wide range of USB flash drives disguised as other things, office items like desk clocks and pen sets, and food hampers.
"Wine, nicely packaged, is still popular," Williamson says.
Then there is the question of when to send the gifts out. Send them too early and they seem odd. Send them too late and the recipient may have taken off for the beach, and that basket of fruit sits on the doorstep liquefying.
Williamson is also seeing a move to philanthropy, where people tell their customers they are giving to charities rather than sending out gifts.
