Marketing Gone Wild: How to Alienate Customers in Your Marketing Efforts

Did I miss something? Is there some direct marketing guru suggesting that companies send more than one direct marketing piece to the same address, at the same time, in hopes that at least one of the pieces will be opened?

I used to have a Chase credit card. A few years ago, my wife and I decided to consolidate our two credit card accounts into one account. By no means would I consider myself a loyal Chase customer, but they never did anything to make me hesitant to one day return as a customer either. Until today...

Chase has been sending regular mailings with credit card offers at least twice a month. Just under my "nuisance" radar because you can see the words "Chase," "credit card," and a really big "0%" through the envelope. I glance at the front for two seconds and the envelope is never opened before being processed by my shredder.

Today, however, I received three envelopes from Chase with the very same offer! That's it. Done. I'll never be a Chase customer again. They've set off my nuisance radar and I won't do business with them again. Not going to call them, because I don't trust them enough to take me off their mailing list without offering a sales pitch.

A few suggestions:

• Always de-duplicate your mailing list. I'm no direct mail expert, but this seems like 101 to me.
• Don't become a nuisance to your prospects - once a month, bi-monthly or even quarterly seems like a more reasonable schedule.
• Don't put "Important - Open Immediately" or some other bogus line on the front. You may get them to open the envelope, but they're not going to trust you (and buy) if you've misled them to begin.
  • The studies I've read suggest no information on the front is just as effective as some marketing mumbo-jumbo. Just put return address, name and address.
• Think about using postcards rather than letters/envelopes. Much higher likelihood your offer/information will be read without trickery and irritation.