Responsible Green Reply Envelopes

One thing we all are hopefully aware of is the current push for a national “Do Not Mail” list. About 17 states currently have laws on the books or up for a vote. States v.s. Federal rights aside, if enough voters get behind federal legislation, the world of catalog & direct mail will change drastically – as well as the cost the consumer pays to mail a package or letter.

One way we can help calm the fervor behind such ill-thought legislation is to do what we can to self-police what the consumer may see as waste. And whether they are right or not, going ‘green’ is in and can help to give your response rates a lift. I receive a great newsletter called Springwise that keeps up on new trends and saw this post about reusable envelopes. Not only do Eco-envelopes encourage recycling, the look of the piece is sure to get noticed in your prospects mailbox.

Later

What were you doing at 5:11 am?

I got to work today at 8:01 am and after coffee, checking in with my staff, going to my management meeting, I logged into my personal email. (C’mon, we all do it!) And there in my inbox was an email telling me that Alan Rimm-Kaufman had posted a comment to my previous post.

Amazing. At 5:11 am, he was already up to speed on who had linked to his site and responding with a quick ‘thanks!’. Exactly as he said in his speech at the recent NEMOA conference. Now, I’m guessing it was Technorati that let’s him know about new links – I’m still learning about W2.0 stuff. But the point is, he is engaging with his cloud of users. In one night, I no longer feel quite like I’m on C-SPAN giving a speech to an empty chamber.

That kind of contact will go a lot farther than anything else you can do when building an online presence, or off-line for that matter. The paradigm has shifted. Users, consumers, people – that’s who’s driving the bus now.

Cheers

A Catalog Conference? Nope, Web 2.0

Across the Charles River, an aging icon waited for our arrival for drinks (open bar!) dinner and networking. The new upgraded box seats and other improvements hoped to breath life into the home of the 2007 World Series Champion Red Sox.

But while an empty Fenway Park beckoned, another aging icon was also looking for new life. And for those of us in the catalog/direct mail industry, that would be social networking or the already overused meme, Web 2.0.

For 20 years, the New England Mail Order Association had been holding it’s annual conference in the Royal Sonesta hotel in Cambridge. But until this year, I don’t believe that NEMOA had ever had such a concentration on web related customer acquisition themes and less on list metrics and mailing regulations.

From the fast talking Ken Bruce to Alan Rimm-Kaufman slipping into a Robin Williams like delivery, we all sat and realized that we’d better get up to speed on Web 2.0 or get left behind.

It’s probably no coincidence that it’s been almost a year since I’ve blogged here. But now with alot more ideas, free toys and other tips (notice the RSS feeds?) I’m going to be trying to really get past the ’speaking in an empty room’ and build a blog of value that can help others in my industry, small business or anyone who wants to benefit from direct marketing and better copy.

If you’d like to see what has my rapt attention right now, go to this link on the RKG site: Alan’s NEMOA 2008 links

Cheers