For those DMers who are still unconvinced that e-mail’s a different animal than direct mail, look no further than the following pitch that arrived in my work inbox recently from video surveillance company Veracity USA.

“Wouldn’t it be great if you could keep the existing co-axial cable, currently running your CCTV system, and install IP cameras, or even mega-pixel IP cameras?” the pitch began. “Now you can, thanks to HIGHWIRE!”

Uh, yeah. I was just sitting here thinking: “Man, it would be great if I could keep the existing coaxial cable currently running my CCTV system and install IP cameras or even megapixel IP cameras.

“I mean, if I have to, well, I’ll give up my current coaxial cable to install cameras or even megapixel IP cameras, but why should I? Damn, I love that current coaxial cable.”

Absolutely chilling. It was as if the folks in Veracity USA’s marketing department read my mind.

In the direct mail world, business-to-business lists do not have, shall we say, the cleanest reputation as marketing vehicles go. After all, people change job functions and employers all the time without letting list owners know where they’ve gone.

But at least in print B-to-B, if a list is dirty enough, the money that marketers waste on it will become apparent soon enough in the form of low response rates and they’ll stop renting it.

In the e-mail world, however, sending messages is still apparently far too cheap.

As evidence of how untargeted even Veracity USA knew its e-mail campaign was, its sales copy asked if the recipient worked for a casino, school or hospital, or government institution.

If I was running a casino, the e-mail breathlessly explained: “You can install the latest high-resolution mega-pixel IP cameras from Arecont Vision, IQ Invision, CoVi Technologies, and all the rest without spending significant extra money and having installers interrupting your business.”

Ugh.

Clearly, this is a considered purchase that should have been aimed at a specific audience.

Moreover, since we’re dealing with surveillance equipment, people’s safety is at stake — so it’s a buying decision hopefully made even less lightly than other considered purchases of similar dollar value.

That Veracity USA pitched a trade editor who has absolutely no buying authority — and the fact that its sales copy is so generic and all-inclusive — means the company is pretty much blowing this offer out to any B-to-B address that doesn’t bounce it. At least in print, the mailing label would be addressed to “Security Manager,” or some such title, in an attempt to get the folks in the mailroom to nudge the letter toward something resembling a proper recipient.

A quick glance at the average corporate inbox says Veracity USA isn’t the only company failing to take e-mail seriously enough to keep messages relevant.

Still, the channel returned a whopping $57.25 for every dollar spent on it in 2005, according to the Direct Marketing Association’s Power of Direct economic impact study released last October. This compares with $7.09 for every dollar spent on print catalogs and $22.52 for every dollar spent on non-e-mail Internet marketing.

Veracity’s off-target e-mail is no way to treat marketing’s most efficient channel.

For those DMers who are still unconvinced that e-mail