You've got mail, but maybe not for much longer.

It was probably inevitable.

First the do not call list.

Now, it might be time to get ready for the "do not mail" list.

From the New American Dream website.

State Level Do Not Junk Proposals

North Carolina now has a bill under consideration - bringing the total to fourteen.

 

Recently, legislators in nine states proposed state-level Do Not Junk registries that would empower citizens to opt out of unwanted ad mail. All nine bills are loosely based on the national Do Not Call registry, which itself was commissioned only after three dozen states initiated their own telemarketer registries.

All nine bills are facing stiff opposition from the ad mail industry, but we’re determined to pass as many as possible in 2007.

Most everyone hates getting junk mail, including most of the people who are making a living from it. It's a safe bet that people are going to eliminate the things they hate if they can, sooner or later. It seems, in this case, later is becoming sooner. With rising energy costs, an environmental mindset, rising postage rates, this might have the makings of a perfect storm.

How to respond?

There's no doubt that lots of people make their living from direct mail. One plausible response is to make the economic case that it is necessary for jobs. In a competitive global economy, when massive layoffs are in the news every day, that's going to be difficult. Then there is the argument about the neccesity for direct mail for small businesses.  Given the current political climate about saving energy, efficient uses of resources and adding the reality that more organizations are moving to websites and word of mouth to generate new business, that argument may be a non starter.

Another response is using recycled paper and soy inks. The problem with that approach is that while most consumers believe that, it doesn't mitigate the irritation of a mailbox full of stuff we don't want, that has to be sorted through, sometimes labels taken off, then bagged and put into the recycling.  During those moments, the fact that it's printed in an environmentally responsible way is small comfort.  Admittedly, it seems like a small price to pay. But with so many other methods of communicating, it is no longer clear that the benefits are worth the costs in any irritations. Consumers don't like to be irritated. Politicians are very focused on what irritates consumers.

What can we learn from Google?

Everyone is irritated by internet advertising spam, probably even more than physical "junk" mail. Yet Google has figured out how to magically change spam to useful information. By doing so, they have reinvented marketing and developed a cash stream that is changing all the rules.  They eliminated banner ads and have used design to make information accessible but not intrusive. Google ads do not rely at "grabbing" your attention. Google might have been the first to understand that it is most effective to build a model on attention being given, not grabbed.

The secret sauce is that they are able to deliver contextually accurate content in an respectful, inexpensive way.

Contextually Accurate Content

In web 1.0, the mantra was content is king. As a colleague said to me a couple of years ago, in Web 2.0, context is king. It's become much clear that the context of information allows the consumer to make a pretty good, very fast judgment about whether the content might be interesting.

The simplest application of this common sense idea is Amazon's recommendation engine. It's just an automated new way to do what every good retail salesperson has done forever. "If you liked this, you might like that". When Amazon introduced it, it changed the rules. But like most software, it is becoming a commodity. (Type "recommendation engine" into Google and see what comes up.)

A more sophisticated approach is Gmail, where I assume, the algorithm picks up words in your email, and makes recommendations, quietly on the side of the page.  If you have a gmail account, take a look at the side ads in an email thread having to do with printing. My experience is that when I do have the chance to take a look, there are always "interesting" links.  My experience of those ads is similar to a knowledgeable friend, standing at your elbow, saying "Have you considered this?"  In the context of me checking my email these ads are contextually accurate.

The print industry could be on the side of the angels in the fight over junk mail

if you give people new information that is interesting, it is NOT junk mail. The interim solution is for "opt-in" mail. The rules will probably be that if a mailer has previous contact with a customer, they have earned the right to send them mail. But since lots of mail is used exactly for identifying new customers, this could be a serious stress for many business organizations in the direct mail space.

The software, hardware and the processes are now out there to do a passable  job of figuring out what people might be interested in and sending them information based on that . If you still don't think so, it's probably becuase you haven't looked lately or in the right places. Response rates that "double or triple or quadruple" to 15% or even 30% are outstanding looking from the inside out. When consumers and politicians take a look, they are going to see 70% or 85% of a mailing as "junk."

In some ways, variable data printing has been a solution looking for a problem. If state legislatures start passing "do not mail" laws, that is a problem that has to be solved.