DMA digs in for no-mail fight:
The Direct Marketing Association has strengthened its arsenal against proposed do-not-mail legislation by beefing up its Mailing Preference Service (MPS), offering consumers more choice in how and when they receive direct mail.
As part of the effort, the DMA will also invest in a consumer outreach campaign to help communicate some of these initiatives that will start to roll out in the fourth quarter of 2008.
The DMA has updated its DMA's Mail Preference Service (MPS) to offer consumers finer grained control over the direct mail they receive.
On the policy front, the Mail Moves America effort finally has a dedicated Website.
Deliver Magazine has an article on the success American Girl has had with direct mail:
Among these brands, few have been more successful in marketing to girls than doll manufacturer American Girl, which specializes in a line of dolls with period themes. Founded in 1986, American Girl started with just a mail-order catalog promoting three dolls (Kirsten, Samantha and Molly).
Since these initial direct mail efforts, the company has exploded. American Girl has sold 117 million books and 13 million dolls. girls And it continues to be a major player in direct mail: Its catalog ranks as one of the top 25 consumer catalogs in the country; its American Girl magazine has a circulation of 650,000 and receives 10,000 pieces of reader mail every time it is published.
Discussion
By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 08, 2008
Instead of framing this as the "direct-mail fight," it might work better for everyone if this were seen as the "direct-mail problem." The problem is that sending out 650,000 catalogs and getting 10,000 responses is spending alot of resources to get relatively few responses. I doubt that the public, and especially state legislatures are going to be impressed. On the other side, American Girl would love to be able to send out 65,000 catalogs and get 10,000 responses. The DMA's Preference Service makes a lot of sense for everyone. If the industry, through it's trade association, gives people a real chance to remove their names it removes the biggest reason for legislation. It would give citizens the choice they want and might give mailers some of the information they need to getto 80% response rates that everyone would love.