See how making something fun can affect people’s adoption rate. Brought to you by our friends at Volkswagen.
Using the trash can just got intriguing:
Got any ideas how to make reducing unwanted mail more fun, let us know by posting a comment.
A recent article by Mike Kraus, a business columnist for Allbusiness.com, concludes by saying: “Get on the wagon to listen to your customers’ needs when it comes to direct marketing (and everything else).”
This is Mike’s second article about the business perspective on junk mail in an article titled Junk Mail Be Gone. Mike provides other sage advice that I hope more direct marketers will reflect on as they develop their direct marketing strategies for 2009. Mike states:
1. Consumer backlash continues to grow as direct marketers ignore their wishes. I, for one, continue to work to reduce junk mail whenever possible and continue to grow increasingly frustrated with retailers that ignore my wishes. I don’t own a pet and I don’t want to get your pet catalog no matter what my demographic profile is. And your catalog geared toward women’s clothes isn’t relevant to me either.
2. Consumers are greener than ever. Retailers that ignore consumers’ wishes to be removed from their lists are viewed as non-green in their efforts, choosing capitalism over the environment. Citibank take note: I do not want to earn up to 25,000 miles with a Citibank/American Airlines credit card, so stop sending me your weekly direct mail!
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So here are a couple ideas to maximize your efforts:
1. If you’re going to advertise in val-pack, or any number of similar coupon packs, ask them for data about how many consumers are opting out of receiving their mailers in the zip codes you’re targeting on websites like the ones listed above. You may find that more and more of your target demographic doesn’t want to receive those mailers, thereby wasting your marketing dollars.
2. Most retailers sign people up for email at their stores, which has an easy opt-out function in every email. Try to do the same for direct mail. Create a sign up list or form that asks them to check a box for each type of communication they’d like to receive (or not). These days, most people just opt for email because it’s quick and easy (to write when they’re signing up and to unsubscribe when they dont’ want to receive it anymore). But doing a check against your database when they’re checking out just to confirm they still want to receive mail will help cull your list down and save your money in the long-run. You can even explain that this is another effort to make your company more green.
INFORM’s Secret Life Series is a collection of videos that highlight the environmental impacts of everyday products we all use. This one on the secret life of paper is well done and presents clear facts about paper use in the United States and across the world. Since over 15% of the members at Catalog Choice indicate that they would rather shop online than receive a catalog, I thought it was relevant to share the benefits of online shopping and going paperless.
“Free and green. Those are the goals of a pilot program launched today by the U.S. Postal Service that allows customers to recycle small electronics and inkjet cartridges by mailing them free of charge.”
An innovative program was launched by the USPS in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and San Diego this week. The program, in association with Clover Technologies Group, a nationally recognized company that recycles, remanufactures and remarkets inkjet cartridges, laser cartridges and small electronics, provides pre-paid mailers that you can pick-up at the post office and use to recycle small electronics and inkjet cartridges.
Read the entire press release here.
Today I learned that the City of Napa is using Catalog Choice to promote “precycling” to city residents. You can read the entire article by Jill Decker over at the Napa Valley Register.
The article was prompted by a suggestion from Napa resident Lisa Jaynes. What caught my attention was that Lisa learned about Catalog Choice when she saw a flyer for our site in her garbage bill.
The flyer went out earlier this year to about 26,000 Napa city and south county garbage customers, according to the city’s Napa Materials Diversion Administrator Kevin Miller.
“The city and county of Napa are true believers in waste prevention, sometimes called ‘precycling.’ In the case of unwanted junk mail, recycling is good (and certainly better than sending it to be buried in a landfill),” Miller said, “but avoiding the junk mail in the first (place) is much better for the environment.” It’s the reduce part of “reduce, reuse, recycle.”
An important point that Jill makes in the article is “the site (catalogchoice.org) promises not to share your personal information beyond what is needed to take you off their list.” That’s right – We only send your personal information to the merchant to request that they remove you from their mailing list. As part of the transmission of your information, we require that they not rent, sell or use your name for any other purpose. This remains a voluntary process and we continue to see more and more merchants updating their systems to accommodate consumers’ mail preference requests.
Get a lot of unwanted mail? In 2005, more than 19 billion catalogs were mailed to American consumers – whether they wanted them or not — creating millions of tons of wasted paper and jamming millions of mailboxes full of unwanted catalogs.Many of those catalogs were not printed on environmentally-preferable papers.Catalogs represent a unique opportunity for significant, positive impacts on the environment. The U.S. direct mail advertising industry is comprised of approximately 3,750 businesses, including catalog companies. Unfortunately, the recycled content in catalog papers and recycling rates for catalogs are extremely low compared to other commonly used paper products such as newspapers. Among catalog companies surveyed in 2002, only 12% used recycled paper for their primary catalogs and 18% for their order forms. Fully two-thirds reported using no recycled paper at all. In addition, unlike other direct mail materials such as advertisements, the paper used for catalog production is both bleached and gloss coated, which can result in toxic chemicals released into the environment.Catalogers use over 3.6 million tons of paper each year, which translates to over 8 million tons of trees. By increasing recycled content and sourcing paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (the only credible standard for sustainable logging), catalogers could greatly decrease their negative environmental impact, cut air and water pollution, and decrease the amount of paper filling up landfills.In addition, it is estimated that 95-98% of catalogs go directly from the mailbox to the garbage or recycling can. Finally, discarded paper comprises the largest component of the municipal waste stream, due in part to the fact that catalogs and magazines have among the lowest recycling rates of all printed materials (possibly due to older recycling habits where glossy paper materials had to be separated from other paper products). Today, 34% of the discarded material in the municipal waste system is from paper and paperboard, and 50% of that gets recycled. That’s still a lot of paper going to waste!To learn more about the benefits of recycled paper, visit the Environmental Paper Network’s website at www.environmentalpaper.orgAnd to help catalogers reduce the amount of mail they send (and the natural resources they use), sign up at www.catalogchoice.orgPosted by:Laura HickeyNational Wildlife Federation
