(c)iStock.com/Tuomas Kujansuu
We all get a fair proportion of marketing communications we don’t want – but a new study has now quantified the amount, claiming that a quarter of UK consumers get more than 2,000 irrelevant marketing communications a year.
The unwanted communication has the potential to significantly harm brands’ efforts to engage consumers too as such companies fail to personalise their messages to better suit their customers. The 2015 State of Consumer Privacy and Personalisation report from customer identity management specialists Gigya, which surveyed 2,000 consumers in the UK and US, showed that despite willingly sharing their personal data with brands in exchange for personalised experiences some consumers are getting six or more irrelevant marketing communications a day.
Consumers are starting to hit back at those companies that fail to personalise, however. Almost half (44%) said that they would ignore all future communications from a company that didn’t target them effectively. More worryingly perhaps 15% said that they would actually stop buying products from a company that failed to personalise their communications.
The study also showed that the vast majority (91%) of consumers were at least somewhat concerned about how companies were using their data, highlighting the need to be more transparent and honest about how they collect, store and use personal data.
Richard Lack, director, Northern Europe at Gigya said: “Despite earning the trust of their customers to collect first-party data, many marketers continue to undermine the brand equity of their organisations with the widespread use of untargeted, irrelevant marketing communications.
“First-party customer data is one of the most valuable assets a business can have. The benefit is clear: brands that leverage this rich data to provide personalised, relevant offers and experiences will be rewarded with significantly higher conversion rates than brands that do not,” he said.
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