USPS lost billions in 2010, and 2009, and $450 million in January alone.

It owes $5.5 billion by September for future medical benefits and $1.3 billion for worker’s compensation by November.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe says they’ll run out of money if Congress doesn’t act.

He said the mail would go through, but they’d stiff us to do it. Revenues are down…Mail volume is down.

This means 2 things:

1. Maybe Uncle Sam shouldn’t mail my letter
2. And surely someone else can do it better

Bureaucracy never works efficiently, or in response to the market.

Tell me what you think. Email craig@cdmginc.com.

USPS

Did your spam filter block your last issue of Direct Marketing Update? It’s time to “whitelist” craig@cdmginc.com and craig@dmu.ccsend.com. (If you need simple instructions on how to add these email addresses to your safe senders list, click here.)

Here are the links you need to catch up on from our last issue:

• How to create direct mail profits in an impossible market
• Web strategy: The #1 paid search keyword mistake
• More government intrusion with new “Do Not Track”
• Copy tip: Creating impact with your first paragraph
• Testing corner: Video vs. no video

And with any e-newsletter of any kind, remind your readers to whitelist you!

No tags

Signs are up for McDonald’s Shamrock Shakes, telling me to buy one of the frosty green treats. The calendar marketing tie-ins increase response.

Use meaningful times in any month to market based on 2 points:

1. Holidays nearly everyone celebrates
2. Life events for customers or prospects

Look first at general calendar entries for most readers: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and July 4th, for instance.

The second type includes specific milestone events for individuals: Birthdays, anniversaries, graduation (high school and college), first purchases (new car, first home).

Consider anything that can trigger a consumer or business event.

You can get creative—and very specific. Chase’s Calendar of Events and Amazon.com chart 42 festivities for April alone.

April is Car Care Month and May is National Photo Month. If your B2B buyers are auto dealers, detailers or service shops, offer them a special in April; if your direct marketing is to professional photographers, consider a mailing to them for May.

Shamrock Shakes have their own Wikipedia entry, and McDonald’s sells millions. They’d sell zero if they didn’t do marketing tie-ins.

St. Patrick’s Day gives them a reason, just as the calendar gives you permission to market, justifying the communication and reminding people to do something.

It’s a rationale to offer an incentive—a premium, discount or both.

Bonus: Consider other calendars, such as for churches or schools, how some names on your list are, say, sports fans (e.g.,MLB Opening Day) and that some demographics overlap—like a sports fan in college.

What do you think? Email me at craig@cdmginc.com

Holidays · Life events

You can write great copy.

You can improve response rates.

You can build relationships with clients.

All you must do is stop talking about yourself, whether it’s in what you email, on your website or spread over every page of a direct mail piece.

Great copy is conversational—a shared story—between you and client, or you and prospect. Marketing is your chance to tell your client, “It’s all about you!”

Find out how by watching this “You Orientation” video (about one minute).

Want me to critique your piece…free? Send it to craig@cdmginc.com.

video

Retail sales are suffering, while online and direct marketing sales grow.

Why?

Because direct marketing strategies and tactics work—and we can see this powerful fact at work in these retail trends:

1. Bankrupt. Borders Books & Music filed bankruptcy and is closing hundreds of stores, while its smaller Borders Express stores are untouched:
   (Note: Borders plans 150 “Express” stores in 2012, vs. 6-8 of their big stores.)
2. Smaller. Best Buy has opened 157 Best Buy Mobile locations. They run 1,400 square feet, vs. 38,000 in their main stores.
3. Tenants. Sears leases space in its iconic (and huge!) department stores. You can browse for space…online, of course.
4. Parking. Home Depot sells parts of their (emptier) parking lots to fast food franchises and auto repair shops, raising cash.
5. Reversal. Gap Inc. reverts to a strategy of putting Gap Kids and Gap Body inside their main stores, rather than opening new ones.

Step into the opening left by these changes. It’s not, “Build it and they will come.” It’s “Make it easy, direct and online, and they’ll shop.”

Your customers won’t fight crowds.

But they’ll surf the Internet from home.

They don’t want to shop—but they do want to buy.

What do you think? Let me know at craig@cdmginc.com.

retail · retail trends