Last week I read a column in Catalog Success (we follow the industry press) by Jim Gilbert about the conversation regarding USPS moving to a 5 day delivery schedule. What is interesting about Jim’s article, USPS Column Hits a Naive Nerve, is his response to a comment attacking direct marketers. Jim, a seasoned expert in the direct marketing, caught my eye in his description of what consumers can do to work with marketers to go green. Here is an excerpt from his article:
More and more, mailers and catalog companies are doing what they can to go green. But is this enough? In a word, NO! We’re getting there though.
Here are some suggestions for you:
1. Recycle any direct mail you’re not interested in.
2. Contact catalog companies who send you their catalogs and ask to be removed from their future mailings.
3. DON’T buy anything from a catalog, otherwise (and here is the relevancy issue) you will be tagged as a “mail order buyer” and will receive other catalogs of products which have an affinity to your last mail order purchase. In fact, don’t buy anything mail order, or respond online to any offer!
4. Opt out of receiving business mail using Catalog Choice: http://www.catalogchoice.org/.
5. Use the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service to manage or stop direct mail offers: http://www.dmachoice.org/.
We’re happy not to mail offers to you if you don’t want them (it saves us a bunch of money). Just let us know as described above, and we won’t send you any more mail.
We were very pleased to see our solution called out as an ingredient for what consumers can do to help green their end of marketing channel.
As Jim and all the other marketers I talk to say, they don’t want to mail offers to those of you who don’t want them. So, take Jim’s advice if you want to cut down on unwanted mail.
Hi,
I also like to do something for increasing greenry around the place I live at. Being a person who conduct workshop and training sessions on enviornmental issues, I came across your post of ‘what we can do to combat climate change’ and found it very useful.
To support the ‘Go Green’ movement at my end, I recently brought a electric bike from R Martin Bikes, and love the way it runs. Since my workplace is slightly far from my home I used to travel by a car, but now the enviornmentalist in me takes pride in using a zero pollution vehicle.
Nice to see other people sharing views to promote this cause. I’ll be back to read more. Till then,
HAppy blogging
The simplest way for catalog companies to go green is to stop sending catalogs to people who don’t explicitly request one. Just because I shop in your store doesn’t mean I want a catalog. Why don’t stores offer the chance to opt in rather than opt out. As for DMA, maybe they should work on getting people who love catalogs to contact them first and only send them to people who request them. It has taken me a year and finally have seen the pile of wasted print catalogs slow to a trickle. I didn’t specifically request them and purchased nothing from any of them. Such a sad way to waste trees.
CC.org: you did not expect me to respond? Oh boy here it is!:
#1. Recycling is great, but most of the recycle bins in my vicinity were hauled away. So now, I either wait for our annual “Round Up” or throw away in the trash.
#2. Wow, Several of us have been there and back and now we have no tee shirts (we used to have holes in them). See #5.
#3. Even though we haven’t ordered in years or never ordered some catalogs are starting up again. We know it’s hard for those catalogs to see them struggling. See # 5.
#4. CC.org has been the ever faithful that really has served the purpose that I truly beleive in going green and living up to their word.
#5. Well, DMA created the problem of selling our info, and they lost control and ignored the responsibility of keeping our info from being “sold, shared and rented”. I’m still not caring to have any faith in them. DMA has not been held accountable in the carelessness and subsequently consumers are told to contact them???
My #6: A consumer should not have to “renew” every 6-12 months to mailings that they do not wish to receive once they have clearly stated “take me off your mailing list”. Additionally, we should not have to be told by catalogs that we will receive the 1-2 catalogs before they cease because they are preprinted in advance. Even when you called and have gotten that response over and over again.
The above article is great, only if you invite Alice (in Wonderland) to speak.
Hugs to CC.org!
It’s great to see a discussion of my article going on here. As the author, I appreciate the feedback. Thanks to CC for publishing an excerpt.
BTW, I have had many comments, both pro and con about my USPS rant, which are published on my blog. The article and comments can be read here. http://gilbertdirectmarketing.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/to-think-you-rely-on-them-to-deliver-your-mail/
Thanks
Jim Gilbert
Mr Gilbert: My prior experiences with DMA are not very positive. There are 3 things about them that caused me to lack faith in their marketing of mailing info:
1. The Consumer has to renew their wishes to be suppressed every few years and from prior bloggers here at CC.org, DMA changes their rules without prior notice.
2. I was told by DMA in Washington DC that suppression requests by mail cost a $1 per name variation and address. For me to do this by mail, it would cost me over $40. Basically, my atitude toward DMA wanting to charge any amount to clean up the mess of sharing our mailing info brings to mind- blackmail.
3. Last, DMA is not the only mail lists empires around, i.e. Credit Bureaus, and actual catalogs blatantly continue to sell, share and rent our mailing info – even when you tell them not to. Many catalog companies print their mail preference policies in their catalogs and do not honor it and if they do, they’ve already spread mail info ten-fold.
If you go into CC.org’s Mar-Jun 08 blogs, you’ll see quite a few of my “soap box” rantings – including USPS. When I retired in Sep07, I mentioned to my USPS person that I was going to get off catalogs – she laughed and said that “It’s not going to happen.” …..it did and CC.org has come through with honesty and integrity. My kind of people.
Best to you!
I have continually battled with companies to get my name off their lists. I cancel one, but suddenly get three more from places I’ve never heard of. The amount of catalogs in my mailbox is astounding (even using CC)… and it breaks my heart to walk from the mailbox directly to the recycling bin with a stack of unwanted catalogs. What a huge waste. Yet more often than not, they’re from companies I’ve already told I do not want catalogs from. So I find it really hard to believe Jim Gilbert’s comment that DM’s do NOT want to waste money on people not interested in their products. I try to be as green as possible. It takes me three weeks to fill my garbage bin, yet my HUGE city recycling bin is filled to the brim every week. Yes, it’s being recycled, but why waste the resources in the first place?
Having to “opt out” (which I’ve done repeatedly) unfairly puts the work load on the customer. If I get a catalog I never asked for, from a place I’ve never heard of, why is it up to ME to waste time by repeatedly contacting the company to get my name off their list? Hardly makes me want to EVER buy anything from them. I agree with Joe McDonald’s comment that we should be able to opt IN, instead. Wouldn’t that make more sense to DM’s? Market to people who actually WANT your products, instead of sending catalogs out in the hope that maybe you’ll catch someone’s eye?
More and more, I order online. But it’s very frustrating after telling a company I do not want their paper catalogs, to find that if I order from them online (and checking the “I do not want catalogs” box, which most often is tiny and hard to find), I end up getting not only more paper catalogs in the box with my order, but they start coming in the mail again with startling frequency. So I have to contact them again (and again) to get them to stop. The end result is that I end up shopping LESS with these companies, because of the catalog hassle. They may not get MY money, but they still MAKE money off of my name by selling it on. It’s insane.
If DM’s would actually LISTEN to people who do not want to be on their lists, I’d be much more sympathetic to Jim Gilbert’s rant. As it is, I am FOR the post office reducing service to 5 days a week. If it makes the DM business go under, so be it, and good riddance!! Imagine: without the BILLIONS of catalogs the post office has to deal with, perhaps the rest of the mail will finally be able to get through with more speed!! The PO would be able to reduce their workforce, their fleets of trucks and planes, and even all the bad back complaints of the letter carriers.
My significant other and I feel an obligation to preserve and protect the environment, not an obligation to keep direct marketers in business.
It’s taken quite a while, but we now receive on average about six pieces of direct mail per *month,* and of those six, it’s a “bad” month if as many as two are catalogs.
In short, it can be done, but it requires dogged persistence. (And did I mention we are our postman’s favorite customers?)