Do MOST marketers want to get rid of direct mail? Is that what “MOST” marketers say? Where is the poll or survey to support such a claim? If that is what MOST marketers think, then why is it that marketers spent $61 billion advertising through the mails in 2007 — and $43 billion with newspapers?

Can it be true that “environmentalists” universally oppose the use of advertising mail? How can that be? According to their 2005 tax returns, the National Audubon Society spent $2,701,028 for fundraising postage and shipping; the National Resources Defense Council spent $1,147,114 on postage and shipping for fundraising — and raised $518,164 renting lists; and the National Wildlife Federation spent $1,516,178 on postage and shipping for fundraising, paid $185,736 to purchase list rental services and raised $916,034 from list royalties.

When asked about his group’s use of mail, Peter Bahouth, then executive director at Greenpeace, told ABC News long ago that “accusing environmental groups of paper pollution is a bit like saying that we need to get the ambulances off the street because they’re loud.”

Which major environmental group does not mail? Which major environmental group only uses websites and email? Does the Times believe that electronic media are environmentally pure?

And what about saving trees?

“Deforestation in the United States, rampant in the 19th century has stopped,” says The New York Times. “Forested acreage of the country began rising in the 20th century, and is still rising. Why? Wood is no longer a primary fuel, while high-yield agriculture allowed millions of acres to be retired from farming and returned to trees.” (See: There Goes the Neighborhood, January 30, 2005)

If the Times is concerned about saving trees, then should it not give readers the option to receive the paper without advertising inserts? Wouldn’t that save a lot of trees? And isn’t it true that the Times itself uses direct mail to market subscriptions? If yes, is the Times going to stop its direct mail efforts?

Since when did it become appropriate for The New York Times to disparage a competitive media by using the pejorative and derogatory term “junk mail” instead of direct marketing or ad mail?

As the Times itself says in its 2007 annual report, “most of our revenues are from advertising. We face formidable competition for advertising revenue in our various markets from free and paid newspapers, magazines, Web sites, television and radio, other forms of media, direct marketing and the Yellow Pages. Competition from these media and services affects our ability to attract and retain advertisers and consumers and to maintain or increase our advertising rates.”

“Magazines and newspapers have been at war with advertising mailers for a long time — ever since the mailers began siphoning ad dollars away from publications,” says The Washington Post. “Indeed, newspaper editorialists invented the term ‘junk mail’ in the early 1950s, according to Richard Kielbowicz, an associate professor of communications as the University of Washington, Seattle, and an expert on postal rate issues.” (See: The Junk Mail Plague: You Can Run But You Can’t Hide, April 22, 1991)

The Times reports that the direct mail business was “vilified even before global warming became a hot topic.”

Exactly who vilified direct mail?

“A number of foreign postal administrations deliver unaddressed advertising mail, and U.S. postal officials toyed with the idea as long ago as the 1950s,” according to The Washington Post. “The agency was not independent of the White House at the time and the Eisenhower administration rejected the proposal after a year-long test. It had come under attack by the newspaper industry, which coined the phrase ‘junk mail.’” (See: Special Delivery for ‘Junk Mail,‘ August 18, 1995)

If the Times would like to present its readers with an informed discussion of direct mail and the environment, that’s fine. Hopefully it will mention the 8,300,000 jobs and the $1.2 trillion in products and services anchored by the mailstream. Hopefully it will want to explain what their loss would mean to our country. Hopefully it will discuss how many people want to close their local post offices because of environmental concerns.

Unfortunately, an informed discussion is not possible when advertising mail is first slammed with a prejudicial term invented by commercial competitors and then saddled with one-sided claims of environmental damage. The Times owes an apology to its readers.

Technorati Tags: advertising, conflict, coverage, history, media, newspapers, spending

According to the paper each individual will receive 560 pieces of ad mail each year; 10.8 pieces per week; and it notes that 42 percent of all pulpwood is made into paper,

Let’s see, mail is generally delivered six days a week and there are 52 weeks a year so that means there are 312 delivery days annually. Less federal holidays, maybe 300 delivery days a year. So, if 560 pieces of mail are delivered each year and there are 300 delivery days that means each day results in less than two pieces of ad mail per person.

This hardly sounds like a crisis.

As to the 10.8 pieces of ad mail per week, just how remarkable is it given that there are six delivery days in a typical week? Still less than two per day.

Then we see that 42 percent of all pulpwood is made into paper. Notice that pulpwood is made into “paper” and not just mail. So, for example, according to the EPA in 2006 there were 44,840,000 tons of paper and paperboard products produced — of which 12,360,000 tons were used to make newspapers and 5,890,000 tons were used to create advertising mail. (See: 2006 MSW Characterization Data Tables, EPA, table 4)

Here are some interesting facts the Winston-Salem Journal left out:

Newspapers compete with the mailstream for advertising dollars. As the Washington Post has explained, “magazines and newspapers have been at war with advertising mailers for a long time — ever since the mailers began siphoning ad dollars away from publications. Indeed, newspaper editorialists invented the term ‘junk mail’ in the early 1950s, according to Richard Kielbowicz, an associate professor of communications at the University of Washington, Seattle, and an expert on postal rate issues.” (See: The Junk Mail Plague: You Can Run But You Can’t Hide,” April 22, 1991.)

If the Journal wants to tell the whole story, it should plainly inform readers that it competes with mailers. It should say that the term “junk mail” is a slur developed by the newspaper community to disparage a commercial rival. It should note that newspapers, like advertising mail, are made from paper but that a significant percentage of both products are made from recycled materials.

The Journal should explain to readers that advertisers can market their goods and services through a variety of media. Advertisers, being lucid and logical, will not use media that does not produce results.

The use of ad mail has proven to be effective and efficient for many advertisers. If that were not the case, surely advertisers would take their dollars elsewhere.

And ad mail has value: The mailstream anchors 8,300,000 jobs nationwide and the production of goods and services worth $1.2 trillion annually. Is the economy so strong that we can do away with so many jobs inside our borders?

The Journal can do better than this. It needs to update its style manual to purge the term “junk mail” from its pages — or it needs to explain to readers how the term came about each and every time it is used.

Technorati Tags: advertising, mail, newspapers

America’s best marketing medium is universal, inexpensive, effective and efficient.

You don’t need a massive advertising budget, hundreds of outlets nationwide or a big-city address to become involved in direct mail marketing.

You can start small and have your program grow as your business expands. And if you already have an established business, direct mail can be used to enhance an existing marketing plan.

A direct mail program begins with a thorough analysis of the product or service being sold. For example, a company — we’ll call it Tonertronics — that sells small copiers for home offices is really marketing more than a device to make copies. Other values can be stressed to potential buyers, such as:

• Convenience — With your own machine, there’s no need to run down to a copy center at 8 pm just for one or two copies.
• Expense — The cost per copy is lower than a commercial copier might charge.
• Efficiency — If you have your own copier, you don’t have to wait for other people or worry that someone else will break the machine.
• Productivity — Instead of leaving home to make a copy, an individual can devote his or her time to income-generating activities.
• Warranty — A service agreement with an automatic loaner feature can assure that buyers will always have a machine available. Given a variety of values, the next step is to write and design an appropriate brochure.

Businesses, especially small or new organizations, can sometimes generate effective advertising material in-house, but organizations of all sizes commonly use direct response firms for such work. These companies can write copy, select paper and provide graphic design services to produce the look, tone and pitch most in tune with a potential market.

Once the brochure has been developed, the next step is to target the proper market.

You want to find that group of people who not only are most likely to have an interest in your product but also have the financial capacity to buy it.

To find the most likely buyers, Tonertronics can rent a list of home office workers from a specialized company with access to thousands of lists. List brokers have lists that can pinpoint home-based computer users, free-lance writers, public relations specialists and artists. Before renting such lists, however, the copier firm will want to make sure it is getting the best deal.

• Cost — Lists are generally rented on the basis of a charge per 1,000 names. The better the list, the higher the cost per name.
• Restrictions — Many lists are restricted so they cannot be used by those who compete with their owners, or by organizations and individuals offering items inconsistent with the goals of the list owner. A health magazine, for example, would be unlikely to rent its list to a firm that wants to market chewing tobacco by mail.
• Terms — Since lists are rented for limited periods of time and for a given number of mailings, it’s important to know how long and how often a list can be used.

Once a list has been acquired, the next step is to work with data processors who specialize in mailing list organization.

A data processor can take a basic mailing list and compare it against a national change-of-address database, a ZIP+4 directory, demographic information and other lists until the basic list is honed and perfected.

The list development process is crucially important to direct mailers. Every time a duplicate name is removed, or an unlikely contact is eliminated, the mailer pays less for printing, postage and handling.

To this point, there is a product, a mailer and a list. Now it’s time to insert materials into an envelope, label each envelope, and then apply the proper postage.

For small jobs, say several hundred to a thousand names, the work can often be done by hand through a small firm or a non-profit, sheltered workshop.

Inserting by hand is often impractical, however, especially when large volumes of mail are involved or a quick turn-around is important. Jobs of all sizes can be handled by full-service direct mail firms and direct response organizations that use automated equipment.

In addition to automation, larger firms sometimes offer another advantage as well: a full-time postal representative on site. In such cases, by having a postal employee at the mailer’s facility the Postal Service saves money and speeds processing because the delivery of millions of letters is streamlined.

Not all mailing firms are full-service operations, however. Some limit their activities to insertions, labeling and postage and in such cases customers will often hire a lettershop.

A lettershop is a specialized company that navigates through the postal system to find the best possible rates for clients. As an example, a lettershop might arrange direct transportation from a printer to the particular post office which offers the best rate. Direct delivery to an individual post office can eliminate many distribution layers as well as excess postal costs.

Once the mail goes out and orders come in, the mailer — in this case the copier company — must begin the delivery process. Mailers can fill their own orders, but many prefer a fulfillment service which takes the orders, assembles the ordered goods for shipment and then sends the merchandise to the customer.

Fulfillment services are so effective that a company can sell by mail and never handle its own products. Instead, products are sometimes sent from manufacturers directly to fulfillment firms and then from fulfillment companies to individual consumers. At the end of the direct-mail process, the copier company should have orders, hopefully at a lower cost per sale than otherwise might be
available with alternative media.

And if the company is really savvy, it will realize that it may have a new asset as well. The individuals who bought copiers might also want other products and services, information that a list manager may be able to market to other firms with an interest in home-office sales.

Technorati Tags: advertising, business, mail, marketing, mationwide, national, postal

At the center of America’s new media habits is a basic conflict between time and numbers. As a nation, we work longer and vacation less then most other countries. The result for many of us is less time to read, watch or listen.

But although we have less time for the media, the number of media outlets that compete for our attention is growing.

The three major TV networks that dominated television for the past 40 years must now compete with a fourth network as well as huge numbers of cable channels.

The number of magazine titles has greatly increased in the past decade while total industry circulation has grown slowly.

Major big-city dailies now face strong competition from specialized publications such as shoppers, city magazines, suburban papers, entertainment guides and local real estate advertisers.

Consumers are spending more time online — time that in the past might have been spent with traditional media.

What we’re seeing today is a wholesale shift in media preferences. Major metropolitan dailies are not getting the market penetration that used to make them so strong. The result is that they are less and less effective as advertising platforms. Daily newspaper circulation, as one example, has plummeted. According to the Newspaper Association of America morning and evening circulation in 2006 stood at 52.329 million copies — down from 63.340 million in 1984.

The alternative to broad-based, shotgun promotions is targeting, a strategy often represented by advertising mail marketing.

Why? When you use advertising mail there’s a sense of individual contact. There is also a feeling of immediacy, that here is something of value which should be considered now.

And while radio and TV are powerful mediums, even if you have the world’s best commercial it doesn’t count for much if a listener or viewer is out of the room. And once radio and TV ads are finished, they’re finished forever because few people tape even a tiny portion of the many programs broadcast each week — and some recording systems are programmed to ignore ads.

The need for targeting is largely behind the move to make individual media outlets reach more precisely-defined audiences. As an example, instead of a large daily paper with a single editorial package for every area in a major city, a newspaper may instead publish zoned editions and specialized sections.

In similar fashion, generalized radio programming has given way to stations that feature only one type of fare. Stations that offer top-40 music compete for a different audience then those which offer religious programming or all-talk formats.

Magazines, too, are becoming increasingly specialized as new publications spring up to serve individual market niches. As for television, segmentation is responsible for the growth of all sports, all news and all music cable outlets as well as specialized channels for children, investors and movie watchers.

To make matters more complex, we not only have papers fighting papers and TV channels battling with other TV channels, we also have across-the-board competition.

Consider the dilemma of a company that produces a two-seat sports car. Does it advertise in local newspapers, magazines that cover the auto industry, or does it use advertising mail to reach individuals who currently own sports cars and live in high-income residential neighborhoods?

Advertisers today want to reach specific publics. The availability of consumer and business data, useful software, computers and market segmentation allow advertisers to target their messages with great precision. And when messages are carefully targeted, it becomes possible to obtain higher response rates and lower costs per sale.

Targeting offers other benefits as well.

• First, with careful targeting consumers are likely to receive fewer irrelevant ads. They will increasingly receive only those ads which most closely relate to their buying patterns and demographics.

• Second, in an age of heightened environmental awareness, it’s often wasteful to broadly advertise when targeting can lower costs and yet produce the same number of sales. More efficiency translates into less need for paper, energy and landfill space, benefits that help everyone.

• Third, advertising mail is the most democratic medium of all. You don’t need a $10 million campaign to start an advertising mail program. Individuals, small businesses, charities and growing companies can all find advertising mail programs that fit their budgets.

The new emphasis on targeting can be seen in advertising sales. For example, between fiscal 1997 and 2007, ad mail volume increased from 77.3 billion pieces to 103.5 billion pieces — a huge increase, and one that is especially interesting because it parallels the growth of online communication.

What the future will bring is an open question. Tough economic times in the late 1980s and early 1990s slowed retail, employment and real estate advertising — the traditional mainstays of big-city newspapers. Conversely, as the economy improves newspaper advertising volume should rise.

As for advertising mail, it is increasingly popular both with advertisers and the public. According to Robert Coen, Senior Vice President, Director of Forecasting at Universal McCann, advertisers will spend almost $64 billion on direct mail in 2008. That’s more than advertisers will spend on newspapers and about one out of every five advertising dollars spent for all media.

Technorati Tags: advertising, efficiency, efficient, mail, postal, targeting, technology

Mail spending rose 4.0 percent in 2007 to $60.998 billion, according to Coen, senior vice president, director of forecasting with Universal McCann, one of the largest advertising agencies in the world,

In the December 2007 issue of his “Insider’s Report,” Coen
said that advertisers spent $283.88 billion on all media in 2007, a .07 percent increase over 2006. In effect, mail continues to represent one of every five dollars spent by U.S. advertisers.

Coen said Internet advertising increased 20 percent in 2007 to $10.92 billion — about one-sixth of the dollars spent with the mailstream. Newspapers took in $42.94 billion, down substantially from the $47.71 billion spent in 2006.

For 2008 Coen estimates that total ad spending will grow by 3.7 percent to $294.38 billion. expenditures for ad mail will grow at an even stronger pace. Coen predicts that for 2008 advertisers will spend $63.73 billion advertising through the mailstream, up 4.5 percent over 2007.

The fact is that advertisers will spend more money on direct mail than on promotions through radio, newspapers, magazines, network television, cable TV or the Internet.

“Madison Avenue,” says Business Week, “came of age as a content supplier to mass media and remains much better versed in making 30-second TV spots than in exploiting the interactive intricacies of the Internet. What is more, in the same way that network TV’s dominance of media is eroding, advertising’s dominance of marketing is diminishing. Marketers are increasing their spending on telemarketing, direct mail, e-mail, in-store displays, and other forms of closely targeted, nonmedia spending.” (See: “The Vanishing Mass Market,” July 12, 2004)

For advertisers, there is a use and value for all forms of media. Each media option offers something unique, and in a country with an $11 trillion economy everyone benefits when there are numerous media choices.

But why the interest in mail?

Advertisers today want to reach specific publics. For instance, a local pizza store may want to reach everyone in a given ZIP code while a company that sells ski boots may only want to reach households with a given income level in communities where snow is common six months a years.

The availability of consumer and business data, advanced software, computers and market segmentation allow advertisers to target their messages with great precision. And when messages are carefully targeted, it becomes possible to obtain higher response rates and lower costs per sale. In other words, mail is popular because advertisers get strong returns for each dollar they spend.

Targeting offers other benefits as well.

• With careful targeting consumers are likely to receive fewer irrelevant ads. They will increasingly receive only those ads which most closely relate to their buying patterns and preferences.
• In an age of heightened environmental awareness, targeting can lower material consumption and yet produce the same number of sales.
• Advertising mail is the most democratic medium of all. You don’t need a $10 million campaign to start an advertising mail program. Individuals, small businesses, charities and growing companies can all find advertising mail programs that fit their budgets — and the same is also true for unions, political campaigners, environmental groups, consumer organizations and religious congregations.

Does ad mail targeting work? You bet.

According to the Postal Service consumers read 78 percent of the advertising mail they receive, nearly 10 percent respond to offers, and 21 percent bring coupons and ad mail with them when they shop.

The new emphasis on targeting can be seen in ad mail volume:

For example, between fiscal 1996 and 2007, ad mail volume increased from 71.7 billion pieces to 103.516 billion – a huge gain, especially given the growth of email and online communication in general.

What is the future of ad mail? Given universal delivery six days a week as well as competitive pricing, ad mail offers much potential. After all, how else can you securely reach more than 148 million physical addresses?

Technorati Tags: advertising, billion, Coen, Internet, mail, Mail & Jobs, newspapers, postal

But not all messages are the same. Some break through the clutter, catch our interest, and cause us to respond.

For generations big companies that were once small — and small companies that wanted to grow — have known that advertising mail offers values that are special and unique.

Advertising mail stands out. It can be targeted to reach just the right folks with just the right interests. It can produce results that are clear, immediate, and measurable. It is the medium that delivers DVDs to see, samples to try, and coupons to save.

People trust advertising mail. It’s a form of communication that has been used to transmit values, share concerns, and build support for more than a century. Little wonder that marketing trends come and go, but advertising mail is successful year after year.

Mail. The Medium that Delivers.

© 2008 Postal2020.com, All Rights Reserved.

Technorati Tags: acceptance, advertising, clutter, mail, small business

America may be a melting pot, but many of us continue to use and enjoy languages from all over the world.

English is a second tongue for more than 47 million Americans — individuals who buy and invest, vote for candidates, support causes, and donate to charities. To reach this vast and diverse marketplace, you need to use the right words in the right language — messages delivered most effectively by advertising mail.

Advertising mail allows you to communicate in the language of the marketplace, whether the marketplace uses one language or many. And because advertising mail makes linguistic differences an asset rather than an obstacle, messages stand out, have meaning, and produce results.

You can target advertising mail to specific audiences, and you can gain credibility and understanding when you do. Because in today’s world, “reaching out” means more than reaching out in English.

Mail. The Medium that Delivers.

© 2008 Postal2020.com, All Rights Reserved.

Technorati Tags: advertising, buy, language, mail, second tongue, sell, vote

Despite whispers (and sometimes shouts) to the contrary, advertising mail is not clogging the nation’s landfills, not subsidized by first-class postal rates, and not unwanted.Here are advertising mail’s most common myths, and here too are the reasons such myths are unfair, unreasonable, illogical and plain wrong.

Myth 1: Advertising mail is nothing but “junk.”

The term “junk mail” presumes that advertising mail is something without value. It is a prejudicial expression, unfair and unwarranted, the equivalent of saying that a reporter is a “yellow journalist.”

To put the matter simply, if advertising mail is junk, if it is unwanted, unread, and unproductive, then it would have been abandoned long ago by advertisers.

The truth is that most Americans, most of the time, use advertising mail. The result is massive economic and employment benefits nationwide.

“The Postal Service has about 738,000 employees, relies on revenue from operations rather than taxpayer funding and is one of few federal bureaucracies with which most Americans have regular contact,” says The Washington Post. “It is at the center of a $900 billion mailing industry, which employs 9 million people in such businesses as direct mail, paper manufacturers and printers.” (See: Postal Service Finances Bleak, March 23, 2004)

Myth 2: Advertising mail is unwanted.

For this myth to make sense, it must be asked if any form of advertising is wanted. There are few (if any) reports of consumers demanding more ads in newspapers or magazines, or pickets standing outside radio and television stations pleading for more program interruptions.

In contrast, people request catalogs. People want to know about sales and special close-outs. They ask for coupons and they want free local newspapers. And people often ask to be on the mailing list of a favorite religious organization, environmental group, or charity.

Myth 3: Advertising mail is an environmental problem.

This simply is not the case. If advertising mail is a significant environmental problem, then why havemajor environmental groups been substantial and long-term users of advertising mail? For instance, according to The Wall Street Journal (May 13, 1991), the National Wildlife Federation was expected to send out approximately 60 million pieces of advertising mail in 1991 while Greenpeace mailed approximately 33 million pieces that year. All major environmental groups use advertising mail to reach current members, seek financial support and advocate positions and ideas.

When asked if Greenpeace was contributing to the nation’s environmental problems because the group uses advertising mail, Peter Bahouth, Greenpeace’s executive director, told ABC News (September 10, 1991) that, “accusing environmental groups of paper pollution is a bit like saying we need to get the ambulances off the street because they’re loud.”

Truth is, there is tremendous demand for scrap paper — including ad mail. China, as one example, imported scrap paper worth almost $1.5 billion in 2007.

Not only is advertising mail not clogging the nation’s landfills, in many cases it offers substantial environmental advantages. When consumers order from catalogs or use coupons received through the mail, they avoid needless trips, save gasoline, reduce air pollution, decrease highway traffic, lessen the threat of global warming, and cut our dependence on foreign oil sources.

Myth 4: Advertising mail is only for big companies.

One of advertising mail’s most attractive aspects is that it can be targeted. If an advertiser buys a spot on radio or television his or her message is broadcast to the entire community with an advertising rate that’s charged accordingly — even if the advertiser is just is a small store in a single location. In a similar fashion, even zoned editions of large urban daily papers often cover far larger areas than small advertisers need.

Rather than being just for large users, advertising mail democratizes the marketing process because it can be used by businesses, organizations, and religious congregations of every size. Local dry cleaners, restaurants, food stores, and pharmacies can all use advertising mail effectively, as can major auto manufacturers and vast national enterprises.

Myth 5: First-class postal rates subsidize advertising mail.

Not only is this myth not true, it’s also not possible under federal law. Federal law requires each class of mail to pay its own way. No class of mail can pay less — and no class can pay more — than its fair share of postal costs.

So how is it possible that advertising postal rates are lower than first-class costs? The Postal Service charges a variety of rates because it provides differing levels of service. As an example, if you mail a first-class letter you know that delivery within a certain time period is guaranteed, that your letter is private and cannot be opened, and that your letter will be returned if it cannot be delivered.

Other classes of mail enjoy fewer services. For example, advertising mail — mail often used by catalog companies, religious congregations, local retailers, and others — is subject to inspection and can be opened. There is no guaranteed delivery date for advertising mail and such materials are not automatically returned without extra cost.

Another reason rates differ is that mailers do much of the work that would otherwise be done within the Postal Service. For instance, mailers must deliver their mail to a limited number of specialized postal center, the mail must have appropriate ZIP+4 information, the materials must be arranged in ZIP code order, all envelopes must face the same direction, all labels must be machine readable, etc. In effect, less work for the Post Office and more work for the mailer produces lower rates.

Myth 6: Postal rates would decline if advertising mail were eliminated.

Over the years, advertising mail has become crucially important to the Postal Service. In 2007, according to the annual report of the U.S. Postal Service, advertising mail represented nearly 50 percent of all delivered mail.

Now imagine if a letter carrier normally has 10 pieces of mail to deliver each day. If advertising mail is suddenly eliminated all homes and businesses must still be served, even though the carrier has less to deliver and Postal Service revenues have been slashed by billions of dollars. The result would be that costs would have to be divided by the remaining volume of mail. Stamp prices would soar.

Myth 7: Once your name is on a mailing list it stays on forever.

It’s bad business for a mailer to spend good money on postage and materials to reach an individual with no interest in a given product, service, charity or message. For this reason, most mailers are happy to comply with a name removal request.

The advertising mail industry maintains a free service which allows individuals to have their names removed from many national mailing lists. For details, go to the DMA’s Mail Preference Service.

If a company or charity does not belong to an industry organization, then call the organization’s “800″ number and ask to have your name removed from its mailing list. Alternatively, send a note to the organization in the mailer’s self-addressed, postage-paid envelop and ask to have your name removed.

Myth 8: Advertising mail should be limited.

If it is agreed that advertising mail should be limited, then precisely who should stop mailing?

Should we curb the mail sent by our nation’s churches and synagogues? Should we restrict the mail sent by environmental groups, charitable organizations, educational and scientific institutions, labor organizations, political parties, or members of Congress? Should we limit small businesses? Big business? Minority businesses? And who should tell us who can mail and who can’t? A governmental agency?

If the goal is to reduce advertising by mail, why stop with advertising mail? After all, a substantial volume of advertising mail enters the nation’s homes in the form of second-class newspapers and magazines? Should we shut down these advertising outlets as well? As Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas explained with great care, freedom of speech means not only the right to print, but also the right to distribute, the right to receive and the right to read.

The best way to control advertising is to test its effectiveness in the marketplace. If people don’t like something they won’t respond, and without adequate responses advertisers will simply change the way they do business.

Technorati Tags: advertising, mail, myths, postal, reality, subsidies, volume