Delivering Data-Driven Marketing Success For Over 40 Years
Over 40 years BBS has built pioneering address management solutions and used our expertise in data optimisation to deliver bespoke direct marketing campaigns. We have helped thousands of clients to reach more customers.
Our Vision
To transform how businesses connect with their audiences through trusted data and insight, and inspire smarter marketing.
Our Mission
Empower clients to reach the right customers through pioneering data‑optimisation, insightful targeting and high‑quality fulfilment.
Our Process
From raw data to actionable insight to delivery, our proven end‑to‑end process ensures maximum impact and success every time.
Meet the team
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A Journey of Passion, Purpose, and People
The Story Behind BBS
It began over a Sunday lunch. In 1976, a group of campaigners preparing for a referendum on whether Welsh pubs should open on Sundays wanted a smarter way to identify and mobilise supporters.
Working with Bob Carter, then at Liverpool University, they turned to emerging computer technology and the newly introduced postcode system to map voters most likely to support a change in the law. The approach was groundbreaking — and it worked. Voters backed liberalisation by a clear margin, marking one of the earliest and most successful examples of postcode-based targeting.
By 1980, Bob had joined forces with Shirley Carter to launch BBS, driven by a shared ambition to harness the power of microcomputers for strategic data management. Shirley brought deep technical expertise from her time at Leeds University, where she helped establish an international software library of numerical algorithms.
As founders, Bob and Shirley continue to steer the business to this day.
Decades of Data-Driven Excellence
During the 80s, our BBS engineers developed the most sophisticated systems in the UK for the processing of names and addresses, including the now ubiquitous ability to look up your address from just a postcode and vice versa. In the 90s, we expanded into direct marketing, building data optimisation techniques and delivering fulfilment services to sit alongside pioneering software solutions for the sortation of direct mail.
In the 2010s, BBS introduced omni-channel direct marketing in addition to direct mail, and in the 2020s, we built cutting-edge new systems to track the timing of mail delivery. We have refined our in-house data optimisation method to turn raw customer information into actionable insights to help our clients grow their businesses. Today, BBS remains family-owned, and we pride ourselves on a high-quality, personal service.