Ultimate in Performance

IDM Business Performance Awards sponsored by Experian

The IDM/Experian Business Performance Awards are fast becoming the ultimate accolade for the direct marketing profession. Their keen focus on what has been achieved by means of direct marketing rather than how it has been achieved make them coveted prizes for client and agency alike.

At only three years young, the event itself has been around for a shorter time than many of the entries vying for the prize. This underlines the message that the most successful examples of direct marketing are borne neither of a knee-jerk reaction to increase sales rapidly, nor of a unilateral direct marketing process which presumes a typical minimum response rate. At the heart of every exemplary direct marketing strategy is a customer relationship management programme, designed to evolve alongside the customer over the long term.

It is these model strategies that the Business Performance Awards were launched to recognise and that the Institute of Direct Marketing strives continually to nurture.

The focus of the awards on direct marketing’s proven contribution to the measured business performance of the product or service it promotes does not make eligibility or entry easy. The application process involves providing a detailed business plan and assembling performance figures that prove beyond doubt that the direct marketing strategy has generated a substantial volume of business in its own right.

Each and every one of the finalists provided that proof. They demonstrated that strategically applied direct marketing builds businesses, shapes products and improves services.

Having read all those entries and attended the judging, I have no reservation in passing on my personal congratulations to the seven finalists. Meeting the entry criteria and getting through the first rigorous judging stage is a Herculean task.

The gold winner now joins the exclusive list of past winners who continue to prosper through direct means. Its achievement suggests that the NSPCC, like Goldfish and Legal & General, will enjoy continued growth in years to come.

David Payne

Chairman of the IDM

Experian continues to sponsor the Business Performance Awards because, of all the awards out there, this is the one that assesses the science and the strategy.

Direct marketing has long been heralded as the most measurable arm of marketing communications and, equipped with new technologies and techniques, we are beginning to see the measure of that accountability taken, as it were, to the nth degree.

Experian is therefore delighted to support an award which recognises and rewards excellence in the gathering, analysis and application of data to improve business performance.

The finalists and winners you will be reading about have two attributes in common.

First they have all demonstrated excellent strategic thinking, expertise and application of techniques. Second, and more importantly, the strategies they have adopted are capable of sustaining continued, improved business performance.

David Coupe

Managing director of Experian

JUDGES

Nigel Ludlow

Managing director

The Economist Group

Trevor Hilliard

Managing director, retail financial services

Alliance & Leicester

David Jones

Chief executive

Next

Graeme McCorkell

Consultant and director

The Institute of Direct Marketing

Peter Mouncey

Director of research

The Institute of Direct Marketing

Nigel Swabey

Chief executive

The Catalogue Resource

David Coupe

Managing director

Experian

Annie Swift

Publisher

Marketing Week