Mediatech Direct

The mailing and fulfilment start-up has found Capscan’s suite of data cleaning and suppression products has revolutionised its efficiency.

The Problem

Start-up mailing and fulfilment house Mediatech Direct was established in January 2007, with production capabilities doubling in recent months. As Mediatech’s managing director Phil Brooks points out, “We’re fairly unique in terms of a start-up due to the scale of business.”

Many of the company’s clients gather their own address data rather than buying from lists, and this results in a significant number of unmatched records. To correct this,  Mediatech needed the ability to clean, enhance and suppress data in addition to it’s day job of sorting the mail.

Mediatech’s rapid expansion required a range of products to deal with the data, in oprder to improve accuracy and reduce wastage, as well as to meet the requests of clients.

The Solution

Mediatech choose to outsource the solution and turned to Capscan for help. Having worked with the company before when he was managing director of TPF Group’s direct mail division, Brooks was already familiar with its products. He says, “Capscan has an industry proven product, and our clients were comfortable with it.”

The direct mail company chose to use Matchcode Batch, Matchcode Data Capture, Capscan Integrity and Sortcode. Matchcode Batch and Data Capture cleansed address data by using Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF), and formed complete addresses using ‘fuzzy matching’ processes. The online data-cleansing product Capscan Integrity was also used to enhance and suppress data, screening 85,655 records against the Bereavement Register.

Finally Sortcode was used to pre-sortthe mail to enable the senders to receive discounts  from the Royal Mail Mailsort programme. Mediatech’s IT director, Steve Gibson, says, “This is where a clean database with full postal addresses can pay dividends in terms of Royal Mail Discount. The postage costs of a mailing campaign are usually the largest single cost to the client, and therefore mailsort discounts are a key feature in the cost-effectiveness of a mailing campaign.”

The Results

Mediatech speaks positively about working with Capscan, with Brooks saying, “We’re very happy with how they’ve rolled it out. They’ve given us great service and support from day one.”

He also points to the benefits of the suppression services, “One file we used suppression products on had 3,000 records taken out, just using the bereavement file”, recalls Brooks. “You can imagine the implications for the client if they contacted those people. It’s not anything anyone in the commercial sector would want to do.”

He adds, “At the moment we are using these products on a one-off job process, however as the demand increases, we’ll start to use the Integrity online system full-blown.” Selecting the right products is also important for a new company’s profile. Sales Director Dave Wright adds, “We’re building our reputations on the back of the service we offer and Capscan’s products are a part of that.

Click here to see this case study as it appeared in Direct Response magazine. Reproduced from Direct Response magazine with the permission of the copyright owner, Haymarket Business Publications Limited.