We can easily test messages and service offerings with this technique.

Sales Letters Within past year we have successfully used paper direct marketing to position and sell one of your customer’s web-based service to local governments – city, school district, special district, county, state. Using a one page letter with compelling content and overt calls to action to meet face-to-face, we have successfully met with 30 county Supervisors or Executives in state of California.

As background, there are 58 counties in California and in campaign I’m citing we only targeted 40 largest. Our paper direct mail campaign was designed to generate face-to-face meetings. The results of this campaign were meetings with 30 County Supervisors or executives (Chief Administrative Officer or County Counsel - most senior non-elected officials in county government). From letter to meeting was one phone call. Our campaign had a success rate of 75%! Paper direct marketing works.

The average annual value of each customer we targeted in this campaign was $200K. Our cost of paper direct marketing campaign was a one page letter, envelope, and $.37 stamp sent to approximately 350 people. We printed letters and envelopes in our office and had two people assigned to follow-up. The first customer we earned from this campaign paid for this effort many times over.

We have a campaign underway at this time targeting 100 largest school districts in US. We’re experiencing similar results.

And, in case you’re wondering….Yes, we’ve used same technique in approaching F1000 senior executives and have enjoyed similar success.

Paper Direct Mail is Alive and Thriving In this emerging era of Internet use, paper direct mail remains relevant and happily coexists with traditional websites and blogs – neither is an either or decision. All have an important use in sales and marketing, and paper direct mail remains relevant…it still works.

There is one more thing I would like to add. Now don't let this scare you, but it is a fact. All someone has to know about you is your name, basic location, and basic age, and within 1 hour can know everything from your criminal and civil court records, drivers license number, social security number, what your exact address is, who lives there with you, who lived there before you did, what your credit rating is and a HUGE amount of other information that you never though anyone would ever find out, unless you gave your permission! The really wild thing is, you don't have to be a hacker, have a special program or anything else to find all of this out! It is there for taking, if you are of a mind to look it up. Online sellers, as a general rule, not only do not have urge to do this, they do NOT HAVE THE TIME! Now, I am not saying there aren't people out there that will do this, but majority of them are not owners of internet e-commerce sites. They are people who really don't want to work for a living, they would rahter live off of other peoples money. Internet sellers are proud, professional business men and women, and we have our own reputations to protect.

Now that you know all of this, take some time to think about it and see if it doesn't make sense. Besides, what is better than being able to shop from home, in your pajamas, and not have to go out and fight crowds, waste gas, you have whole world at your fingertips to find just right thing, and to top it all off, you have an honest person like me on other end, waiting to make your transaction a great one for you, because I WANT YOU TO COME BACK!

Owner and operator of three websites, Ebay seller and buyer, and champion of "unknown" artists and artisans. Check out our websites at:

Ice Originals II http://www.tias.com/stores/iceorig