letters to the editor

GOING NOWHERE?

I love to read Ray Schultz’s column. And I hope he doesn’t miss the e-mail announcing that Bob Wientzen has resigned (Direct Hit, Nov. 1).

Now I need to vent. Bob Wientzen, president of the Direct Marketing Association, makes about $700,00 with benefits. That’s OK with me. But…

How can he make the remark [at the opening session of the DMA’s annual conference] that “ink on paper is going nowhere”?

DMA revenue was down 28%. Who does he think pays the bills? What does he think the HP one-to-one prints on? Electrons? No, it’s still paper.

I am not a vendor like Acxiom (in fact, I sell golf gloves and other golf things by mail). But if I were, something a lot stronger than this would be going directly to the DMA — a cancellation of my 14-year membership.

I’m done.
Rich Card
President
MasterGrip

THE ‘UNTAMED FRONTIER’

I can’t describe how surprised and pleased I was to read Ray Schultz’s column on the spam problem (Direct Hit, Nov. 1). I hope the DM industry will take a leadership role in bringing law and order to the untamed frontier. If it does, I feel that consumers (spamees?) will allow DMers some freedom to market with this method, if the real garbage can be kept out of the average e-mail box, and the daily dose does not exceed the MDR.

I would like to see opt-in become a religion of sorts, where anything else is not likely to expose itself to women, children and the infirm. To do this will take sensible legislation and the full cooperation of all Internet service providers, since they are closer to the source and have more access to the technical know-how to stop this problem — and if need be, trace it to the source.

By the way, I am very glad to see that search engine optimization is starting to get some mention in DIRECT (Search Engine Marketing supplement, Nov. 1), but I was disappointed to see so much emphasis on paid placement systems. I recognize that they are more of an advertising presence, but they are not as cost-effective as professional search engine optimization.
Christian Nielsen
Nielsen Technical Services
Minneapolis

A NEW LOW

I think Jim Rosenfield’s article “Hang It Up” is right on target (DIRECT, Nov. 1). I have been in the direct marketing business for the past six years or so, and clearly of late, unsolicited telemarketing has reached its worst level.

I definitely foresee a shakeup in the telemarketing industry in the near future. As a direct mail and print advertising specialist, I hope for a shift in advertising dollars from telemarketing to other acquisition vehicles.

While this may occur to some extent, I expect a fight to the death by powerful advertisers that understand the profitability of the current telemarketing environment. Why would I want to pay for increasing postage costs in direct mail? DRTV and DR radio offer viable alternatives as well…but media costs can vary. We shall see.

Nonetheless, I think Jim’s article neatly and cleverly describes the growing “public” problem and offers important and idealistic solutions. So often in business, our proposed solutions are much more pragmatic than idealistic. Why bother?
Alex Kennedy
Conrad Direct
Cresskill, NJ

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