October Direct Mail E-newsletter

October 2000

Advo Announces 100 Missing Children Recovered
At the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, Advo announced it has helped to recovered 100 missing children as a result of its "Have You Seen Me?" direct mail cards. The program started by Advo in 1985, sends 79 million cards to homes every week. Since its inception, the program has distributed more than 40 billion pictures of missing children and boasts the return of 1 in every 7 missing children featured.

Deceptive Mail Law To Be Tested
Senator Susan Collins is urging the USPS to determine whether several sweepstakes mailings comply with the new Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act passed last year. So far, Collins has collected five examples of mailings that she says clearly violate the Act's four basic requirements.

The new law, which became effective April 2000, requires that sweepstakes mailings conspicuously display the following:

No purchase necessary to enter
Purchase will not improve odds of winning
The contest sponsor's name and contact address
Odds of winning and value of the prizes

The new law also empowers the USPS with investigation,
subpoena and stop mail authorities. They may also impose
civil penalties of up to one million dollars.

Direct Marketing vs. Internet Marketing
The short-comings of internet advertising are slowly coming to light. Since last month, we have come upon some more data to add to this article.

Real content on the web is being squeezed into ever shrinking margins as the e-marketers secure more and more pixels for advertising.
Web real estate prices continue to increase which constrains advertisers to increasingly smaller areas where they struggle to be noticed.
The web page banner ad's time has come as it's response rate has fallen from a high of 5 percent to less than 0.3 percent.
Internet advertising cannot deliver the benefits of targeted marketing such as relevance and brand recognition.
Studies reveal that your advertising message must be
presented 7 or more times before the average consumer will take notice. Each time you have only 6 to 30 seconds to make an impression. Direct mail provides an economical means of repeat advertising that's necessary for successful marketing.

More on this topic can be found in the September issue. Read past issues at http://www.mailcci.com/past_issues/.

USPS News
** Non-Profit Rates
The U.S. Senate recently passed a bill designed to reduce non-profit postage rates. The bill aims to keep non-profit rates at 95 percent of the corresponding commercial rates. The bill has yet to pass in the U.S. House of Representatives and then Congress before it can move to the Postal Rate Commission to be included in the latest rate case.

** Stamps As Currency
The USPS has unveiled yet another new service called MicroPayment. Customers can now pay for goods and services using first class stamps as currency. Low price goods such as those offered on the back of cereal boxes usually require only proof of purchase and the cost of shipping and handling. Now the shipping and handling costs can be paid by the buyer by attaching the appropriate number of first class stamps.

This service promises to reduce costs to the seller and increase their response by making it easier for consumers to pay for the products.

The USPS does keep 10 to 15 percent of the value of the stamps used for the MicroPayment service.

** Postage Rate History
With the impending postage rate increases on the horizon, I thought you might like some more history on the subject. Did you know that at one time postage rates were calculated from the number of sheets in the letter and how far it was to travel? Prior to 1847 stamps were not issued and they were not required on letters until 1855. In 1792 you would pay .06 per page for a letter to travel less than 30 miles.

Think first class postage rates are too high? More than 200 years ago, a 2 page letter traveling more than 450 miles would cost .50 - seventeen cents MORE than today!

The proposed 1 ounce First Class stamp rate for January 2001
is .34.

Three decades of postage rates were listed in the September issue. Read past issues at http://www.mailcci.com/past_issues/.

October News Poll
Where do you put your money?
A) Traditional marketing
B) Internet marketing
C) All of the above

www.mailCCI.com
We've added a new tool for mailers - The Direct Mail Investment Return Calculator. Now you can analyze your last mailing and get statistics like cost per response, cost per piece and cost per buyer/donator. Check it out at http://www.mailcci.com/direct_mail_ROI.asp.