Today we meet Debb Bovett, senior data products manager at Acton International in Lincoln, NE. A longtime list and direct marketing industry veteran, she asserts that no matter the technology or country, the basic principles of direct marketing hold.
Before joining Acton 12 years ago, she worked for about 15 years at Metromail Corp. which was acquired by Experian in the late 1990s as well as for a small hard goods specialty manufacturer.
She specializes in brokering and managing lists in Japan, Australia and other Pacific Rim counties. "Acton is very very strong in Japan both on the consumer and business sides," she says.
So what are the differences between doing direct mail here and in Japan?
"The list offerings are minimal and there's really no formal updating process like we have in the U.S.," she explains, noting that Japan lacks anything comparable to the U.S. Postal Service's National Change of Address service and people matching lists together.
Another barrier is language.
"You're dealing with Kanji-language lists which use the Japanese characters so your computer systems have to be prepared for that," she notes, adding that merge purge processes work very very differently and use Kanji-based character sets.
Nevertheless, "Japan as we know is a robust market with all kinds of products and goods, a lot of technology, services such as clothing, financial investments," she says. "All kinds of offers that work here will also work in Japan."
Acton, which first opened a Tokyo office in the early 1980s now does about 80% of its business internationally, Bovett says.
Despite massive technological changes over the years, Bovett feels the industry remains largely intact.
"If you look back to the glory days in the '70s and '80s when people were mailing huge quantities the list business was really healthy and I think it's healthy today but I think it's healthy—it's still practicing the same tenets—package, offer, good fulfillment-- those are the same, she says. "It doesn't matter if you're using mail, the Internet or the phone."
On the other hand…
"I think probably the biggest change from my perspective and my clients' perspective was the Internet energy and the misuse of data via Internet partners—not direct marketers—but new people on the Internet who really didn't realize that there was a big data industry already established. We have for decades tried to regulate ourselves to use data appropriately, to use it honestly and to eliminate people who did not want to receive our offers," she says. "And of course the Internet came in and blew it all for us.”
Despite the recession, Bovett says mail volume in Asia as a whole has picked up within the past year, though she concedes mailers are sending out smaller quantities and testing more carefully.
Going forward, she sees emerging markets for direct mail in mainland China –especially for business-to-business offers—as well as in Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
"Those densely populated quasi-industrial countries are where everything is going to be," she says
When not working, Bovett loves to read and to get away to her cabin in South Dakota and go fishing.
