First Contact, Part 4
Junk mail
You might still think that the US Post Office is a US government
agency. It is not. It is a private corporation. Sure, there is
that little problem of you going to jail for using FedEx to send
a letter but it’s all a private organization. It is also
an organization that is going out of business. To stay in business
the postal service has to deliver something to your door. What
it delivers may not be what you want, and you might not have any
way of stopping them from delivering it to you, but they stay
in business. Their reason to exist is to EXIST. It has nothing
to do with you. About 70% of all the “stuff” in your
mailbox is junk mail. That is by number of items. Junk mail represents
about 98% of everything in your mailbox by weight.
Sears and others use “carrier route presorted bulk mail.” They do it because it works.
The homeowner gets full color pictures of how their home can look and are told all about
how “affordable” it all can be.
There is an “800” number included in brochure for the homeowner to use. As you might
imagine, these “800” response calls are vastly superior in potential pay off to any other
initial contact with the potential customer.
In the case of Sears we have a fantastic demographic. Most of the elderly in the USA
remember Sears from their childhood as being pure and wholesome. So here we have an
ever-more demented target market who’s few remaining brain cells remember Sears
fondly. Time and time again the Sears home improvement salesman will go to a Sears
customer’s home and find some old lady who’s mommy bought all of her school clothes at
Sears (in 1938) and who then even bought her own children’s school clothes at Sears (in
1955). Buying from Sears is a token, a fond memento of things past, and a return to
happier times.
The problem for Sears is that they are still depending upon the
ever-more aged and infirm for a customer base. Sear’s stores
seem dull warehouses of below average products. They continue
to survive on their old reputation. As with the Oldsmobile and
the Cadillac, their customer base is dying out.
The airwaves
Lastly, there is radio and TV advertising. Radio is not as effective as TV but some
companies use radio because it is cheap and they can target the mindless and the
innocent.
Through judicious use of radio station demographics and time slotting they can offer such
