3 ms·

i both agree and disagree. i disagree with the premise that years and years and billions of dollars have been spent, so it must be the best way. times are cha

by noodle 17y ago

i both agree and disagree. i disagree with the premise that years and years and billions of dollars have been spent, so it must be the best way. times are changing, people are changing. i've been trained to throw away every piece of junk mail, and so have most of my friends. junk mail is being actively read by a shrinking demographic. just because something has worked does not mean it will continue to do so, or that the statistics are representative. it might not be a good plan to hitch your line to a sinking ship. i agree in the sense that there are some effective design patterns with respect to effective copywriting, and that some people are forgoing them for something else, perhaps something more aesthetically pleasing when aesthetics don't necessarily get the job done.

Semiapies 17y ago
"years and years and billions of dollars have been spent, so it must be the best way" That way lies cargo cult capitalism.
- byrneseyeview 17y ago
  In the short run, yeah. But if everyone is flinging money at junk mail, eventually the ones who are doing it wrong will be broke.
dkokelley 17y ago
"When I want to know how to write a transactional email, I wait for a magazine renewal letter. When I want to know what the “Pro” Account’s page should say, I wait for a membership drive letter to arrive (my home address has been cheerfully sold to a bunch of political committees, so I get a lot of these). And if I want to sell something and I can’t possibly relate to whoever would want to buy it—I keep an eye out for the envelope marked “You’re pre-approved!”" I think the point was to re-purpose the techniques from direct-mail advertising to match the next generation of direct response marketing (like emails and sales landing pages). Use the tools from the mailers in your emails or sales pages instead. You can't really 'throw away' a sales landing page the same way you would an unsolicited credit card offer, especially since you navigated to it in the first place.

by noodle 17y ago

Semiapies 17y ago

"years and years and billions of dollars have been spent, so it must be the best way" That way lies cargo cult capitalism.

byrneseyeview 17y ago
In the short run, yeah. But if everyone is flinging money at junk mail, eventually the ones who are doing it wrong will be broke.

dkokelley 17y ago

"When I want to know how to write a transactional email, I wait for a magazine renewal letter. When I want to know what the “Pro” Account’s page should say, I wait for a membership drive letter to arrive (my home address has been cheerfully sold to a bunch of political committees, so I get a lot of these). And if I want to sell something and I can’t possibly relate to whoever would want to buy it—I keep an eye out for the envelope marked “You’re pre-approved!”" I think the point was to re-purpose the techniques from direct-mail advertising to match the next generation of direct response marketing (like emails and sales landing pages). Use the tools from the mailers in your emails or sales pages instead. You can't really 'throw away' a sales landing page the same way you would an unsolicited credit card offer, especially since you navigated to it in the first place.