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Buy a Cute Teddy Bear with a Side of Junk Mail

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Direct marketing pros will know this, but did you know that pretty much anytime you buy something through a catalog (and most of the time online as well), your name goes into a database to be bought and sold by more marketers?

In fact, many mail-order merchants make a fair amount of money renting their database.  Perhaps some make even more from list rentals than by selling actual products?

For example, even the Vermont Teddy Bear company rents its list of customers.  For just $0.10 per name, you can send them pretty much whatever you want.

vermont teddy bear mailing list

Questions to Discuss:

  1. When privacy is such a huge deal online, and people get all worked up over getting one spammy email, should we have different standards for junk mail?
  2. Should mail order catalogs require a proactive "opt-in" to rent your name to other companies?
  3. Why is there such a difference in how people feel about postal mail as compared to email? 
  4. Should there be a national "do not mail" list?

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Posted by Mike Volpe on Thu, Jun 04, 2009 @ 02:27 PM

COMMENTS

Absolutely, there should be an opt-in!!! Makes so little sense that this area isn't better managed/regulated.

posted on Thursday, June 04, 2009 at 3:21 PM by Nathalie Molina


YES on the national do not mail list. I use Catalog Choice to let retailers know I no longer want their stuff but it takes a while. 
 
BTW, Verizon is the worst offender! I get 1 - 3 pieces of mail from them every day pitching FIOS.

posted on Thursday, June 04, 2009 at 3:43 PM by trish bertuzzi


For many people,email and phone calls seem to be in their house, while mail is less intrusive outdoor stuff you can readily throw away. That may be changing. As a businessperson who works primarily online, I like the fact that we have a stronger code of ethics.  
 
Here's the Do Not Mail List.

posted on Thursday, June 04, 2009 at 4:12 PM by Rebecca


With direct postal mail, the burden of the cost is on the sender, which somewhat controls the volume (it is more of a financial/cost risk to offline "spam" someone). It also costs the recipient nothing other than some time throwing it away. With email SPAM, the sender's cost is minimal or near zero, and those footing the bill to deal with this stuff are the ISPs, etc... 
 
With postal mail, its also pretty easy to opt out as others pointed out. Just not many people do it.

posted on Thursday, June 04, 2009 at 4:37 PM by Andrew


Junk mail wouldn't bother me except for the fact that I love trees and mother earth - and I know that for every sack of trash I haul to the dumpsters, a tree died and a landfill enlarges.  
 
I don't know what company is the worst. Cabellas sends multiple catalogs, even though we have indicated that we're not interested in hunting gear, fly fishing, etc. I wish they'd only send the ones we said we wanted.  
 
Verizon isn't too bad here, because the services they're promoting aren't even available to us in this location. 
 
One of the dumbest is a "large women's" catalog. I ordered a gift from them on line one time and I've gotten their catalogs ever since - and for the last year they've included a notice on the front saying that if I didn't get busy and order something this was their LAST catalog. That would be fine with me! 
 
As for spam e-mail - what bothers me about it is that the junk sails right through to my in-box while some mail from clients and friends gets rejected. Other than that, it takes only a second to hit a delete button, so I don't get excited about it. 
 
When something appears to be dangerous, as in a "phishing" email, I do forward it on to spam@uce.gov.  
 
 
 

posted on Thursday, June 04, 2009 at 10:22 PM by Marte Cliff


According to my information HubSpot inbound marketing software helps the company get found by the qualified prospects that are looking for the products or services that you sell in search engines, blogs and the blogosphere, and social media. 
 
-------- 
 
sam anderson 
 
Parking Sensor

posted on Friday, June 05, 2009 at 12:17 AM by sam anderson


1. Indentity theft is a much bigger problem offline. Do you have a lock on your mailbox? 
2. Mail order companies should have to ASK if they can rent out our identities. 
3. Mail order began in the day when folks had no control over the advertising they received, so we built a tolerance for it, which is another way of saying, we've become unconscious of it. 
4. Yes, from an environmental standpoint alone, there should be a do not call list. In the meantime, there is http://www.catalogchoice.org/

posted on Friday, June 05, 2009 at 7:41 AM by Julia Stewart


No concern over junk mail. And it bugs me when people are concerned over "killing trees". Where are the people concerned over "killing corn", "killing wheat", or "killing flowers"? Trees, like all the aforementioned items, are cash crops. No one plants more trees than the "evil" paper companys that cut them down so they can cut them down again later. C'mon people.

posted on Monday, June 08, 2009 at 11:04 AM by RumblePuppy


I hate junk postal mail. I tend to put a label on marked "return to sender". That way the offending company then has to pay to receive back what they sent me that I didn't actually want!  
 
Spam email is a little easier to deal with, but I have to admit that I have changed email addressess a couple of times becasue of it. I found hotmail bad for accepting spam, but aol seems better.

posted on Tuesday, June 09, 2009 at 2:26 AM by Danusia Jolliffe


As a businessperson who works primarily online, I like the fact that we have a stronger code of ethics.

posted on Tuesday, July 07, 2009 at 4:44 PM by teddy bear


Great topic, they are more attractive than others, i appreciated it,  
 
nike air max 90 running shoe on new model

posted on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 3:21 AM by serenalin


There should definatly be an opt-in option if a compnay wants to sell your information.

posted on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 8:20 AM by Ben Pitman


Comments have been closed for this article.