Never Believe What People “Say”… Believe what they do.
People say they “hate” junk mail or email… but if they got NONE they would quietly feel lonely.
Years ago, we did work for a client who had some 5 million customers on file. They split their company into 3 different companies with 3 different names and addresses. Each company was required to mail one piece of mail to the entire list EVERY DAY.
They also rented out their names to anyone who wanted it.
So, the entire list was getting some 5 to 15 pieces of mail each day. Was that too much? They thought so, so they pulled one million names off the rental market.
That means 4 million people were getting lots of mail each day and 1 million were getting only 3 pieces each day.
In this six-month test, they found that response rates to the one million names… went down, down, down.
So, they threw it back on the rental market… and BAMMO response rates went back up to normal levels.
Conclusion: The more mail they got, the more they responded. Never believe it when someone says they “hate” junk mail.
P.S. If you’ve got a mailing list customer names, you should rent them. Direct mail is not dead yet. In fact, lots of marketers find that they make more money, dollar-for-dollar, in direct mail, than from their internet marketing efforts.
