A couple of years ago I was in Australia speaking for the World Council of Credit Unions. One day I was walking through the neighborhoods of Sydney when I noticed stickers on mailboxes that all basically said the same thing, “NO JUNK MAIL” Some had the word junk mail in the red circle with the line through it, others had just the words, but clearly there was a movement afloat. Or so I thought.
The next day I asked one of the locals what was up with the junk mail protest. He said, “Oh, it’s no protest, it’s now the law. If you have that sticker on your mailbox the postman is obligated to return it to sender.”
I know what you’re thinking, and I said it. “How does HE (she) know that it’s junk mail?” This beautiful Australian just looked at me, put his hand on his hip and said, “Oh please…”
Guess what? There’s already been legislation introduced here in America to do the same. It didn’t pass, but it’s out there.
I asked a group of marketers last week what their response rate is on their direct mail efforts. Less than 1% seemed to be the average. OR, a 99% failure rate. Without a coupon or reply mechanism of some kind I asked these folks how they KNEW that their marketing efforts mattered? They really didn’t. Sure, we do the funny ROI math that says, BEFORE we spent X dollars on our postcard we have X in loan-of-the-month. AFTER we lowered the rate and spent those dollars on postcards, we had more loans-of-the-month. Therefore, we were successful. Really? I’m surprised we’re still allowed to get away with that.
Great service will generate great word of mouth, which in turn will grown your business. I know that sounds simple, but it’s true — especially in banking where, as Ken Blanchard put it, “Your customers are only satisfied because their expectations are so low, and because nobody else is doing any better.” The bar is set pretty low. Customer service in the financial institution world (and I’m talking about all y’all here) in a word, sucks. The only way we think we can get business any more is to cheapen ourselves.
We have to stop begging for business. Now we have to earn it.
Oh, and if you want to read more about the movement to ban direct mail:http://www.newdream.org/emails/ta19.html
6 comments
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April 12, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Tony
In the UK this legislation has been around for years – basically it says, if a person does not want to accept a piece of mail he/she can reject it, and Royal Mail and the other postal carriers have to take it away.
So we’ve done the obvious thing in the UK – made the direct mail so incredibly interesting to read that people actually want to read it.
Simple really.
We (that is my company) for example, now have people who collect (that’s right, collect) all our direct mail letters and turn them into a full set. They email us if they have something missing. If we don’t mail them some months, they want to know why.
It is dead simple – I am surprised it hasn’t caught on in the US.
April 12, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Denise Wymore
Tony,
I would LOVE to see an example of something I would WANT to get in the mail. I’ve been out-of-town for 10 days and just got back to a literal PILE of crap!! HELP!
April 13, 2007 at 4:17 pm
rfahel
Do Not Mail Opt-Out Law would be fair to everyone.
The proposed recent “Do not mail” is an Opt-Out law. Only those not desiring advertising mail need opt-out. Anyone desiring advertising mail can do nothing – and continue to receive it. Why deny those wishing to avoid advertising mail the power to do so?
I do not consider handling unwanted advertising placed against my will on my personal property to be a civic obligation!
The US Supreme Court said in the Rowan case in 1970, ““In today’s [1970] complex society we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes, but a sufficient measure of individual autonomy must survive to permit every householder to exercise control over unwanted mail. To make the householder the exclusive and final judge of what will cross his threshold undoubtedly has the effect of impeding the flow of ideas, information, and arguments that, ideally, he should receive and consider. Today’s merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. It places no strain on the doctrine of judicial notice to observe that whether measured by pieces or pounds, Everyman’s mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know. And all too often it is matter he finds offensive.”
Furthermore, the Supreme Court said, “the mailer’s right to communicate is circumscribed only by an affirmative act of the addressee giving notice that he wishes no further mailings from that mailer.
To hold less would tend to license a form of trespass and would make hardly more sense than to say that a radio or television viewer may not twist the dial to cut off an offensive or boring communication and thus bar its entering his home. Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit; we see no basis for according the printed word or pictures a different or more preferred status because they are sent by mail.”
We need a nationwide “Do Not Mail” law to create a one-stop, convenient place for homeowners to give senders the aforementioned affirmative notice that we do not want certain kinds of mail sent to our homes.
http://www.newdream.org/emails/ta19.html
Signed,
Ramsey A Fahel
April 16, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Ron Shevlin
Ramsey’s idea is a good one. Especially if you don’t mind paying $1.50 to $2.00 just to mail your mother a mother’s day card next time around.
We all bitch and moan that the price of postage is going up, but few of us really understand that it’s business-sent mail that subsidizes the system.
April 16, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Denise Wymore
Ron,
I believe it will go that way — it has no choice. And then your mom is going to love you even MORE because you spent so dang much mailing her a real card.
E-cards will NEVER replace the good old fashioned paper cards you get in your mailbox. I just don’t want to spend five minutes wading through crap to get to it.
June 26, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Tony Mannor
I am conflicted. I have a love/hate relationship with my mailbox. All of my bills are paid with my online banking so I dont really use the mail for that. All of my correspondence is done via email – so I rarely get personal mail save a random birthday card or pictures of new babies from friends.
I would say that 90% to 95% of my mail is “Junk Mail” and I look at every last bit of it. Franklin Mint has a new natvity scene! 15 new free trade magazines (WooHoo!)The new pennysaver with its assorted coupons and insertions. I love it all for the regular reasons – I hate to miss a deal or a new gizmo for my junk pile. I also lve it for the art of the direct mail piece. Some are pretty creative. We actually have boxes here at the agency where we sort the pieces and use them when we have “Creative Block”.
But then I think about the extra fuel it takes to haul all this paper around. But then I think about the friends I have that are postal carriers who have jobs because of “junk mail”. I think about the pollution created by paper mills. Then I think about the people who make the paper and the pressmen that make the pieces and their families that depend on that income.
Junk mail – one man’s trash is another’s treasure.