Only one in every 1,000 UK consumers has opted out of home delivery of print directories, according to research carried out by door drop marketing company LinkDirect.
The perceived threat towards marketers posed by the opt-out movement has not become a reality, LinkDirect operations director Peter Rand (pictured) told the Directional Media Strategies 08 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, last month.
Speaking as part of a debate on “dealing with the opt-out movement”, Rand cited the results of a delivery conducted in Gloucestershire this year after an opt-out campaign undertaken in the area by an environmental group.
The results showed that despite the campaign, just 573 of almost 240,000 people within the target area – or 0.24 per cent – had requested to opt out from receiving a directory.
The research also cast doubt on the claim that only older people were interested in receiving a directory: from the 573 who opted out, 18 per cent were classed as older people, 17 per cent as young people on a low income, and 14 per cent classed as middle-aged on a high income.
Rand also highlighted a separate study undertaken by LinkDirect which considered 100,000 complaints made over the last six years. Over 70 per cent of those complaints related to not receiving a directory, with complainants drawn from a wide demographic spectrum.
Rand said: “The research shows that there is a clear gap between perception and reality in relation to the opt-out movement. While an active campaign prompts a very small response in favour of opt-out, over 70,000 have proactively submitted a complaint about not receiving a directory in the past six years.
“The research also shows that the people who tend to opt out are broadly similar in profile to people who are low users of directories. That’s good news for advertisers while the opt-out proportion is so low, because which advertiser wants to print and deliver to people who won’t respond?
“What the opt-out movement is doing is helping to allow for deliveries to more targeted audiences. Publishers should turn this into a unique selling point – by being proactive with opt-outs, they can with some justification tell advertisers that they are only reaching the people that actually want a copy delivered.”