Direct Mail Is A Waste!

Good Day

I was going to write about how you can build your email list by using lead magnets, but when I picked up my mail, I got a letter from a warehouse club owned by a big box retailer. This letter was addressed to my old frozen margarita rental business, which was closed down 4 or 5 years ago!

I will say that they will give me a free upgrade in membership ($55 savings) and a free $25 gift card when I join, but I have to do it before April 2. Hey, at least they have a call to action and offer a guarantee.

Unfortunately, they wasted money by printing and mailing this letter to a business that no longer exists, thereby lowering their response and redemption rates. They spent maybe about $.30 per letter including postage. Now, let’s say they sent out a few million letters and that maybe 10% of the address/business were bad, say about 300,000. At $.30 per letter that would equal $90,000 wasted right off the bat.

That also means that they lost about 3,000 memberships (1% of 300,000 is 3,000). Now when I had a membership it was $70.00 per year which is a loss of $210,000 not including purchases. Total losses so far are $300,000 on this one mailing!

By using an old out-of-date list and not keeping your in-house customer list up to date, you will be wasting money, lowering your response rate and proving direct mail does not work. As Bob Newhart used to say, “Stop it!”

Until next week,