Vol 6 No. 4

DM News & Tips

Young Boomers respond

A recent poll found that young baby boomers were the most responsive age segment to direct mail this year. Those born between 1956 and 1964 are still taking risks and seeking pleasure. They are responsive to special offers and show a willingness to contribute to charities through direct mail. In fact 59% of them made DM contributions in 2003.

New Privacy laws

The FTC’s national Do-Not-Call directory went into effect in October 2003. Over 51 million people have signed up. Telemarketing firms can access the registered numbers in five area codes for free. After that they must pay $25 per area code and up to $7,375 to get the entire country. Companies who violate the law can be fined up to $11,000 per incident.

The FCC has curtailed fax campaigns. New rules for commercial facsimile communications went into effect on August 25, 2003. They require businesses, associations and anyone else faxing an offer for products or services to have written consent from the recipient.

The European Union (EU) has made unsolicited telemarketing, e-mail and fax communications promoting commercial products or services illegal. This becomes law as of October 31st in all EU member countries.

Tips to test

• Put headlines in quotation marks. They appear more important and draw 28% more attention.
• Add the word FREE (in caps) to the outer envelope teaser copy. It still gets response.
• Sell the offer. Don’t focus too heavily on the product or service

USPS Facts

The U.S. Postal Services handles 41 percent of the worlds mail volume. The country with the second largest mail volume is Japan at just 6 percent. USPS delivers 630 million pieces of mail every day. That’s more mail in one day than FedEx delivers in one year! There are 38 million address changes processed by USPS each year. That’s over 3 million every month. NCOA list service is crucial to deliverability.