Direct Mail Confidential
By Paul Bobnak
About Paul
Paul Bobnak is Research Director of DirectMarketingIQ.com. As the head of the Who's Mailing What! Archive since November 1998, he has analyzed thousands of direct mail packages in 200 industry categories. He has been a judge in Fundraising Success Magazine's Gold Awards since 2006, and also writes for the enewsletter, Inside Direct Mail Weekly.
Paul is also a long-time volunteer for WXPN radio, an occasional long-distance runner, and an avid, if long-suffering, fan of Philadelphia's pro sports teams.
Throwing Lights On
Blog: Direct Marketing School Still in Session
Mar 21, 2011The virtual show. Anyone been to one yet? I have to admit, my first real attendance to any such show...
4 Direct Mail Tips for a Great Yard Sale
One of the best things about this time of year is that it's perfect for yard sales. But judging by what I've seen around suburbia over the last few weeks, a lot of folks are missing a good opportunity to unload their old stuff and make some money. If you adapt some tried-and-true direct marketing tips to fit your yard sale, you can attract lots of prospects, and then, get them to buy.
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Worst. Letter. Ever.
The other day, I ran into a friend who asked me how he and his wife could market their small business better in our shaky times. That's a topic for many days, of course, but he wanted to know specifically about the value of a letter. I could have said that there are some big pluses and minuses for mailing a letter package, depending on the industry and target audience. Entire books, seminars, and much more are devoted to the art of writing a great sales letter. At the time, though, all...
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75 Years Ago, Three Young Men …
I've always loved reading old magazines. As a kid in the mid-1970s, I spent hours on rainy afternoons with issues of Look, Sport, and Life saved by my mom and dad from the early 1960s. It wasn't just the pictures and stories about JFK, Willie Mays and the Beatles that pulled me in; it was also the advertising. The cars, the foods, the TVs — a lot of it was already pretty different from what I knew.
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Timing Really Is Everything
The recent flaps over mailings sent out by Republican fundraisers reminded me of a rule put forth years ago by the late Dick Benson: "Direct mail should be scrupulously honest." In case you don't know, here's the skinny. First, the use of the word "Census" on mailings by the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee led to Congressional passage of a bill last month that required new, clarifying language on the outer.
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Why Direct Mail? My Story
I'm not sure exactly when it all started ... my near-obsession with direct mail, that is. The signs were all there when I was growing up. There was the excitement I felt whenever the Edmund Scientifics catalog arrived at our family's house. Despite its spare 2-color graphics and tiny type, I was still inspired to order microscope slides and other awesome things for my room. And as a bonus, it saved my dad a trip to the "hobby" shop at the Bazaar of All Nations (an indoor shopping complex) a...
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