Ari Ginsberg CEO Contact Marketing Inc.
In my last blog, I discussed the comeback of paper catalogs and how several retailers (including some pure online eTailers) are ramping up their direct mail efforts, sending catalogs to a very responsive audience.
I knew that my blog, albeit true, will not create a huge re-allocation of eCommerce marketing budget to fund this classic, yet, old school method of marketing. So, why did I post it and send it personally to every connection? Because, I believe that when retailers expand and upgrade their direct mail efforts, it creates a profitable opportunity to all other players in the industry… in the form of snail mail list rentals. I’ll explain…
After shipping the product to your shopper, what are you doing, currently, with their snail mail data? If you are not going to use it for marketing purposes, let other (non-competing) brands use it. They will pay you for it creating a new profit center for your business.
As you might know, postal lists (as opposed to e-mail lists), have very little regulation and/or restrictions and there is no need for shopper’s permission to send them 3rd party offers. Of course, one should still be selective and send only appropriate offers that will bring added value to the shopper.
There is a list market (governed by the DMA) where many retailers, publishers and others, rent their shoppers’ postal addresses for a one-time use, while maintaining ownership on the list and the right to approve or disapprove an end-user requesting to use their lists.
So, I urge you to join companies like, Eddie Bauer, William Sonoma, Boden, Plow & Hearth and The Company Store, and consider profiting from this by-product called “your Postal database”. And no, you don’t have to go out and sell your list, find a list manager that will do it for you and enjoy this source of passive income. Best of all, you pay nothing as this industry is all commission-based.
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