Snail mail spam getting worse, really? |
With postage rates inching closer to 50 cents marketing via traditional mail caused many marketers to move to email. Junk mail in our mailboxes has noticeably decreased. In our offline business my preference remains to market with snail mail, despite the increased postage. Apparently we aren’t the only ones according to an article in the Seattle PI.
“The amount of direct mail has increased,” partly because of reduced telemarketing calls and because the industry feels it’s effective, he said.“It’s a huge irritant,” Watson said, “and it’s a waste of time for people. It uses a huge amount of time sorting through unwanted mail. … It’s something that almost everybody has a problem with.”
I’m biased, but really, how much time does it take to wade through the junk mail? At our local post office they have huge garbage bins and counters. You can pull out the junk and deposit it before leaving the post office. I think the longest it has ever taken me to wade through a stack of junk mail is 60 seconds and that was with a full box.
At our PMB for the online business we get maybe a dozen or so junk mails a month. Yeah, that’s a real drain on my time to go through that. Dell is one of the biggest junk mailers sending along their full color catalogs. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t mind junk mail. Certainly not like spam. The amount of spam I received in the few minutes I spent writing this post is more bothersome than the junk mail we receive all year.
How has your snail mail load been over the last five years? Increased? Decreased?
Did this post make you go hmm?
(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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Well, I’m not sure what it’s like where you are, but here in Denmark I received snail mail spam EVERY time I get post. Considering postis delivered 6 times a week, thats a lot of spam! Add that to the volume of printed brochures every major shop send out every other day and my mail box is never empty.
Most days it’s hard to find my bills in there, although I’m not sure that’s a bad thing
Comment by Paul OFlaherty — January 5, 2007 @ 7:28 am PST
At least Email Spam doesn’t cause my garbage can inside my house to have to be carried out to the dumpster which is about 60 meters from my back door. I do receive considerable more email spam than snail mail spam, but the email spam doesn’t cause me to have to trek out to the dumpster every day.
Is snail mail spam really effective for you TD? Am I the only one that totally ignores it and passes it directly to the trash? It really bothers me when I have to sort through it to find an actual letter or even a real bill… my box is always full of offers which I have never asked for… Maybe if I had a fire place I would look at snail spam in a more igniting light, but to me it is usually and extra trip of 120 meters to the dumpster and back.
Comment by Harold Clay — January 5, 2007 @ 8:33 am PST
Yes, traditional mail works great for marketing when you personalize. Think for a moment if you’d be more likely to open something in handwritten ink? Most of the junk mail received isn’t hand addressed and when we do marketing we usually hand address envelopes.
Comment by TDavid — January 5, 2007 @ 9:13 am PST
No kidding….what a joke. They’re trying to throw email spammers in jail, and yet it’s not against the law for corporations to send unsollicted JUNK mail to my HOUSE!
Nor is it illegal for fortune 500 companies to spam my telephone on a daily basis!
The anti-spam laws were brought apon by the “big companies” who want to stop the little guy from getting their businesses in their face.
Brent
Comment by Zulit — August 24, 2007 @ 9:07 pm PST
I don’t know about you but I think both of spam emails and junk mails give me equal amounts of trouble. I agree with Harold above when I say that emails doesn’t force you to get a garbage bag like what happens with junk mail.
However, spam emails also present their own unique dangers and irritations to some people. For one thing, I recall some time in the past when I was forced to spend half an hour cleaning up my inbox. I also recall another incident where a spam email gave my computer a virus - That was a disaster.
To sum it up, junk mail gives you more trash while spam email has the potential to give your computer problems. On the bright side though, opt in email marketing is certainly solving the problem of dangerous and unknown emails from entering one’s site.
Comment by Spam Hater — February 12, 2008 @ 12:14 am PST