NEMOA 2008 – Who Sends All That Mail?

I'm in Boston having dinner at Fenway Park with some really amazing people. No, I didn't meet any sports stars or television celebrities – I met the people who are directly responsible for making all of those catalogs and coupons appear in my mailbox at home. I was honored to get to speak at the New England Mail Order Association (NEMOA) Spring conference. I met the marketing geniuses behind so many of the top name catalogs that fill our mailboxes, and I gained some very interesting insights…

Contrary to popular belief, the people at William-Sonoma or Victoria Secrets or L.L.Bean don't just blindly send catalogs out to every address they can find – it's just too expensive and that's not the process works. Instead, I learned that there's an incredible science and statistical research associated with getting a specific piece of mail into the hands of the people who really want it. The marketing expert from William-Sonoma said it well… "If you get our catalog, you must deserve it." With the cost of printing, postage and mail processing on the rise, I learned that there's a real science to making sure the right customers receive the right catalogs. In retrospect, sending out the Steve Spangler Science catalog seems pretty simple… you request a catalog and we send it. Maybe we need more science.

So, why did the NEMOA people want to play with giant Windbags and learn how to shoot potatoes from yours truly? If the truth be told, I was invited to speak because of a recommendation from great business associate, Alan Rimm-Kaufman, who gave an amazing presentation on social media marketing – this guy is very smart. The NEMOA group also wanted to know more about you… our customers and your passion for making learning fun. The people who visit SteveSpanglerScience.com spend time watching our videos, contribute to our experiment library, post pictures and participate in this blog… and the people in the direct marketing world want to learn about business blogging and creating unforgettable experiences. So, speaker boy cracked a few cups, shot some potatoes, blew up giant Windbags and, the star of the show, Terri Monahan, knocked the tray out and the eggs flew into the glasses.