Marketing and privacy guru Alan Chapell has a good article in iMedia Connection this week about a study from Ponemon (sponsored by Dotomi and downloadable here). Research indicates that consumers want a say over how their contacted–they want to choose their communications channel as a way of cutting down the volume of messages with which they’re assaulted.

Link: iMediaConnection: Value of Message is Key for Consumers.

Eighty-four percent of respondents indicated that having direct control over the types and frequency of Internet ads sent by online merchants would be preferred. Over half (56 percent) indicated that the ability to exercise control is a way for Web merchants to demonstrate that they value the consumer’s business. I strongly believe that in the not so distant future, smart marketers will provide a preferences page for their customers — similar in nature to many email preference pages that you see today. The new preference pages will offer consumers a much greater degree of choice regarding how often they receive marketing and other outreach messages. Moreover, consumers will be offered a choice regarding which channels they’d prefer that the marketer use. Perhaps the customer would rather be contacted via text message, email, RSS, TiVo, phone, postal mail, or via something else that comes down the pike in the next year or two. Part of the problem today is that there are too many messages trying to get through too many pipelines. Companies that are able to offer a simple way for their customers to exercise control of the preference marketing process will be in a good position.