Four NEW Reasons To Trust Junk Mail

Copywriter Dean Rieck, who wrote about direct mail last week in DM News, made an interesting point. Rieck said, “People are so annoyed and suspicious of unsolicited e-mail, they now consider direct mail to be a relatively trustworthy medium.” Imagine that: trustworthy!

Rieck is right, you know. The Internet has given “Junk mail” new authority. I see four reasons for that.

• Direct mail costs money to deliver, so at the very least we know the contact is coming from a source that’s put up their own money to reach us.
• Direct mail originates exclusively from businesses. We can be pretty sure a mass-produced mail piece hasn’t been cranked out by some guy in a basement.
• Direct mail can’t be “hacked,” or “phished,” and it’s an expensive way to steal somebody’s identity. If it looks exactly like something from our bank, it is from our bank.
• Postage has become so expensive that direct mailers have gotten very serious about who they mail to. By the time we get a marketing message by mail, it’s very likely to be relevant to us. Come to think of it, direct mailers are so good that a peek inside somebody's mailbox discloses a great deal about who they are and what they care about. (Nope. Can’t say that about my in-box, can you?)