“Vicious prank”? You people violate the sanctity of my home, uninvited and for profit, and you attempt to take the moral higher ground?
BWAH-HA-HA-HA indeed!!!
C’mon, Jonathan Chance, you have to have a list. Otherwise how would the addresses get onto the envelopes? Maybe you don’t have access authority, but there is a list of some sort.
Nope. I have no list in most cases.
The list is sent directly to a bonded mailhouse. THEY have it. I send them the piece to be mailed and they take care of applying the list to the mailpiece and send it out.
At no point do I possess the list. Nor, by agreement, can I possess it.
So calling me to be removed won’t get you off the list. You have to determine which list is selling your name.
Sorry, I took this;
quite literally.
So who gets my (your) empty, 50 cent/ea. BRE’s? I checked with USPS, and they don’t filter for content before charging the fee. They just send them on to the addressee. That’s you, right?
This is what I said in my first post!
That’s why I was doubtful that your tactics were working as well as you thought they were. And that’s why I said:
If you want to take an action that will have a real effect on reducing the amount of junk mail you get, as opposed to just making you feel better (in a petty and vengeful sort of way), use the Mail Preference Service. Really. It’s not a secret plot to sap you of your precious bodily fluids.
mangeorge: A piece of mail is “violating the sanctity of your home”??? Make sure that aluminum foil hat stays on tight! (j/k!)
Jonathan: I guess we didn’t chat enough at your party back in August(?) to realize that we had this in common.
BTW, lest you all think that I personally am responsible for filling your mailboxes with junk, let me assure you that I send, by DM standards, an infinitesimally small number of pieces per year, only to people in my industry, and almost always to business addresses. So unless you make or show IMAX movies, you haven’t gotten anything from me. And like Jonathan Chance, I will gladly remove from my mailing list anyone who asks, if they’re on my list! If they’re on a rented list, I can’t, and they may get more mail from me if I rent that list again.
The funny thing about this whole discussion is that, like many of you, I too despise most forms of marketing. I hate telemarketing and signed up for the Do Not Call list as soon as it opened. I press mute on my TV the minute commercials come on. I have ad blocking software for my browser. And of all the things I have to do for my business, marketing (which for me consists almost entirely of creating direct mail campaigns) is my least favorite.
Now, this may strike some as hypocritical–if I feel this way, why do I send junk mail?–but even before I got into this business I never felt as strongly about junk mail as mangeorge and others here apparently do. It just doesn’t seem to be as much of an imposition on my time as spam or telemarketing calls. And for publishers of business newsletters, Direct Mail is the only way to get new subscribers. So there’s no choice if I want my business to succeed. I have resisted using telemarketing on principle, even though many publishers use it and business-to-business telemarketing can be rationalized as somewhat less obnoxious than business-to-consumer. But since I don’t like being on the receiving end, I won’t do it to others.
So believe me, I understand your basic attitude. Mail just doesn’t raise my hackles as much as other forms of marketing.
Two points:
A) My last post was a direct response to Jonathan Chance’s post.
- mangeorge: You seem to be a little confused. Jonathan was speaking of the thousands of DM pieces (containing BREs) he sends out to market his business. The recipients of these pieces are on rented mailing lists he never sees. Those recipients who wish to avail themselves of his goods or services use the BRE to send in an order form. The post office delivers the BREs to him and charge his account $0.50 for each, empty or not.
Aluminum foil hats and precious bodily fluids? Touchy, aren’t we.
Really, it’s no big deal. I just take one of the pieces of paper in the mailing, stick it in the BRE, seal it and drop it in a box next time I pass one. I usually have legitimate mail anyway. It’s easy and free.
And I promise you, if a lot of people did the same, something would change. What that change might be, I don’t know.
I just thought of something. I could ask my neighbors to give me all their junk mail and I’d do it for them. 
I’d be glad to send them bricks, since those cost a bunch to mail at first class postage rates. But I haven’t found a source for free bricks yet. But when I do …
Mostly kidding. Yes, it’s juvenile, but so are lots of other supposedly adult behaviors.
And I have to second the mothoin of many posters: The DMA’s mail preference service works slick, at least for national advertisers. It seems to have almostz ero effect on our local junk mailers and coupon companies unfortunately.
On preview I see mangeorge’s latest post, and all I can say is that there are none so blind as those who will not see. I’m not touchy: *you’re *the one who considers a piece of paper to be an intrusion on your privacy. I’ve tried, with the assistance of one or two other knowledgeable posters, to explain why your method is not as effective as you imagine, and to suggest more practical ways to achieve your stated goal of getting less junk.
But I can see I’ve wasted my time. Do your best. I’m sure the multi-billion dollar direct mail industry will be dead in weeks.
Before seeing your post, I spent quite some time writing the post below. Although I doubt it will have the intended effect, I’ll let it stand, rather than have wasted all that time.
I’ve got to get back to work, creating my next junk mail piece.
============
Re-reading the whole thread I think I see a point that Jonathan and I may not have explained clearly enough: the business of renting lists.
I don’t pretend to be a world expert in this field. I’ve been publishing in a small industry for seven years, and have some DM experience, but if Jonathan or anyone who knows more about the field wants to expand on or correct what I say, please feel free.
When you voluntarily give your name and address to a company–for a magazine subscription, to apply for a credit card, open a bank account, whatever–they obviously create a record in their database. Associated with this record will be a great deal of other information, including your buying history, sex, age, income level, marital status, etc. etc. Many things can be inferred if not actually known, based on other factors, i.e. income level based on expenditures or bank account totals.
When businesses market, they usually want to focus their efforts as narrowly as possible on those people most likely to buy their products/services. So they need the names and addresses of likely vict… ummm, customers. Other businesses have that information, so the business of renting lists rose up.
If I start a magazine about, say, expensive sports cars, I need to send DM pieces to as many men aged 35-60 with incomes over $100,000 as I can. So I go to a list broker who has lists of lists, and specify my target audience. The list broker says, I have a Republican Party list that matches pretty well, and a yachting magazine list, and so on. I make a selection of the lists I think are most promising and pay, usually through the broker, a rate per thousand. I might be charged more for “selects” within the given list. So if I ask for people within a certain geographic area, or who have actually bought a yacht, or something, the rate per thousand is higher, but presumably the response rate from this more select group will also be higher.
The list broker contacts the list owner, who pulls the select I asked for and sends it to my mail house. The mail house does the printing of the DM package, stuffs the envelopes, and handles the addressing and mailing of the package. They get the list, usually as a database file (although list owners used to actually provide labels), and apply it to the mailing pieces. Once the mailing is done, the mail house destroys the list. As the rentee, I never see it. I only get the information of people who are responding to my offer. (Then they become part of my list.)
That fact is integral to the whole process, because I am renting the list, not buying it. I have no right to copy the list. The amount I was charged was to use those names for that one mailing. I can’t reuse the list for a later mailing without paying again. It is possible to buy lists, but it’s very expensive and rarely done, in my experience.
All of this is why returning the BRE and asking to be taken off the list doesn’t always work.
Woohoo! My first “The Master Speaks” link!
Excuse my naiveity but if you rented list a from lists-r-us and had a mailing for blue widgets go out. Then you receive a letter saying I hate blue, I have no need for widgets take me off your list, can you not foward that name to lists-r-us saying this person hates widgets don’t send him to anyone wanting widget customers.
I’m not sure why you insist on explaining things to me, commasense. I’m not confused. Nor am I sending bricks, notes, pleas, or pictures of nekkid wimmen. I’m returning only the envelope with a small bit of the other for filler. Nothing really extravagant, as I said above.
You, though, seem to have a penchant for hyperbole. “bodily fluid” and “foil hat” don’t really follow from “return BRE”, now do they.
I’ll probably try the service mentioned above, after I finish my experiment.
BTW; how, really, does junk mail differ from telemarketing? Both have the same goal, and both are uninvited. Both are rude.
Frequently we don’t even know the list owner.
Most list brokers, who ALSO don’t ‘own’ a list make sure there’s an adequate buffer between the buyers and sellers. They’re middlemen and they know it.
So the buyers pay more and the sellers make less. Makes sense to me.
Don’t get me started on commercials in movie theaters. :rolleyes:
could I just ask the company who is selling who does their junk mailing to get the name of the mailing lister?
Well, I’ve never yet been awakened from a nap to answer a piece of junk mail. 
However, I do resent the fact that my information is being marketed. I wouldn’t resent it so much if I was paid or given a break to release the information, but frequently I MUST release information in order to purchase or use something. I’ve seen some companies ask if they can share information with “other select” companies. From what I can tell, their basis for selecting the other companies is whether or not the renters can meet the fee. I’d like to see ALL companies forced to allow us to opt INTO releasing information. I might be quite interested in getting mailings about science fiction and fantasy related items, for instance, though not necessarily so thrilled to have my medical problems marketed to.
I can certainly understand that.
I’m all for ‘opt in’ lists as a marketing tool. Frankly, they give me better quality leads and a higher response rate.
I’m certainly one of those in DMA (I’m a member of the Washington DC chapter) who’s pushed for ‘opt in only’ in terms of email marketing. And I push for the same in hardcopy marketing.
The resistance is strong strong STRONG, though. Not everyone believes as I do. Nor do I know how to get such a prohibition through congress.
mangeorge: These two questions were the reason I thought you were confused about the process, and why I thought it might help to explain it to you:
My hyperbole was intended to gently poke fun at your (illogical, IMO) determination to proceed on a course of action that won’t have the desired effect.
If you won’t object to a bit more advice (well, even if you do), Jonathan’s post reminds me that the other way to reduce your junk is to contact all the companies that you do business with and ask them not to provide your name and address to other companies. Sometimes the opt-out choices are provided in the context of privacy policies on Web sites. But it’s a laborious process, since you have to do it with every single company, and most don’t go out of their way to make it a simple process.
You can also try to track who’s selling your info by varying your name on applications. The middle initial is one way. Variations in your address won’t work (i.e. Rd. vs. Road), because addresses are changed into the USPS standardized form by the mail houses.
Finally, there is some junk you will never stop. All the stuff addressed to “Resident” goes to everyone. If you call the grocery store and ask, they may say they’ll take you off the list, but they won’t.
mangeorge: Any time you want to set up a protest or start a petition against ads in movie theaters, I’m with you! Now that’s rude!
You even quoted it, and still didn’t see. Here, I’ll bold it for ya;
Maybe you don’t have access authority, but there is a list of some sort.
Too vague, huh? Ok, in plain english. You don’t have to hold a piece of paper to have a list. Someone else can hold that paper as your agent. You are still using a list. Even though you can’t see (touch) it.
Like I said, my crusade doesn’t require a lot of effort. Nor are my expectations high, so I’m not risking much disappointment.
Though I didn’t get any junk mail yesterday…