Know-How Exchange : Other

These days, pretty much everyone figures you've sent out a mailing with a mail merge program. It's no longer personal. If you're trying to grab someone's attention - hand address it. Use a fun stamp (not an indicia).

Dear tobrien,

It's my experience that personalized mail gets opened more
often than non personalized mail. The more a piece of mail looks like junk mail or something that's at all unsolicited, the surer its unopened journey is to the trash can or recycling bin.

So, envelope-wise, no indicia, no stickers, no "fake" stamps.

EVER.

Use live stamps (slightly cockeyed is a nice touch), and yes, hand address IF you can.

If that's not practical, at least use fonts that LOOK like handwriting (and certain hand written fonts look better than others), so the watch words here are: BE SELECTIVE.

To transform Grade C mail (junk) to Grade A mail (top of the stack), consider lumpy mail—that is, consider something 3D. Just Google "lumpy mail" or "3D mail" and you'll find all kinds of solutions.

But inside a regular envelope, yes, always—ALWAYS—use a salutation, mail merge or not. Even though a piece may be part of a 50,000 print run, if your list contains the relevant segmented data, USE THEM!

First name, Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss, Dr., etc followed by their name (first and last, just first, or just last) are all fine—use sound judgement—but never, NEVER "Dear Sir or Madam".

I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Jay & Gary, Thanks for the thoughtful replies. Gary thanks for the review -- a very tight review of the do's and don'ts. I understand the principles but I'm having to convince a colleague that going to the expense of personalizing each piece of mail is worth it versus just making the whole package attractive but not personal. Are either of you reminded of a book or article from your past that cited the research behind personalize versus impersonal mail with all other aspects of the package being equal? Thanks again.

Thank you BARQ for the reference -- I'll definitely pick it up. I read Cialidini's Influence: Science & Practice and found that helpful, but I need specifics about DM and, you make it clear, I'll find them in YES. Thanks again.