When I was in college I heard about how junk mail used to be much more dangerous, because junk mailers could legally enter you into contracts where you agreed to pay for something like say a magazine subscription, unless you wrote back to them rejecting the contract (which obviously cost you time and money). It was a term called "entering an implied contract through inaction". And then if you didn't pay the bills they sent you they could sue you for nonpayment or sell the debt to collection agencies to harass you for the money. Eventually people got so fed up with that abuse of contract law that the government changed it and made that method of entering a contract illegal.
Rather than increasing regular postage rates by so much that it kills demand, we should be raising rates on pre-sort instead. It's all about incentives. Businesses still have an incentive to send direct mailers at a higher rate, whereas individuals have a disincentive.
When I get a letter that says on the envelope, "important -- open immediately", it gods straight in the trash. I know its junk. really important mail doesn't say " important" on the envelope. It has a return address of "irs audit division".
I don't even pick up my mail anymore. Maybe once a month and I throw 90% of it away without even opening it. I have everything on autopay so I don't get anything timely in the mail. I don't even look at it much less read it.
When I was young, I got mail for gym memberships and amusement parks. I realized I was getting old when I started getting mail for nursing homes and funeral plans.
If I didn't request it, I don't want it. Not responding to mail offers, email offers, phone solicitations. Garbage. Thankful to live in a place with no mail and NO JUNK MAIL. It's heavenly.
Love that this episode is called “junk mail” and they’re like “we don’t like to call it that.” Also, does anyone who doesn’t work for a data broker think data brokers are okay?
Did the percentage of junk mail go up because there's more junk mail? Or because there's less of everything else? Like, I almost never send or receive s personal letter any more. I send email or a text message. Most of my bills now come by email instead of paper. About the only mail I still get is pleas from charities, political flyers, and advertising.
I like junk mail. It goes in the kindling box and is great for starting fires in the fireplace. But if we could convince marketers to use soft fluffy paper it would really be useful.
A 25% response rate on junk mail that would imply that every one of us responds to one in every four pieces of junk mail. I find that extremely hard to believe. I suspect the only profit in junk mail is to the companies that manage it for businesses. The direct marketers convince companies that it pays off, but it doesn't
The response rate he mentioned was between 1% and 4% for junk mail. The number that was up to 25% was the conversion rate - which is what percentage of the responders went ahead and purchased/subscribed/whatever.
I signed up with the National Association of Advertisers to be placed on their Do Not Mail list. It's very inexpensive, like 50 cents a year or something like that. My junk mail has practically stopped ... slowed to a trickle.
Ahh YT! You’re reading my mind - again! This morning I posted a comment on a local TV news site regarding a back log of undelivered mail at a newish USPS sorting center. This has been an ongoing problem for months and still not resolved. My comment; “Just checking some stats and see that bulk commercial mail makes up nearly 60% of the volume handled in 2023. It also says that it generates a large amount of their (USPS) income. Maybe, just maybe if we eliminate the junk we wouldn’t have a need for multi million dollar sorting facilities that don’t work. I think I am starting to see cyclical here more junk mail = more money = more new dysfunctional sorting facilities = we need to spend more money to fix it = more junk mail.” It would also save a lot of space in our overflowing landfill, as this is where 99% of the useless junk ends up.
I don’t understand how people are tricked by these methods. Without much practice, you can open assess and toss what you don’t want without even seeing who it’s from.
The idea of junk mail, there's a term for this but I forget , junk mail creates a subconscious impression. You may get a junk mail offer from Stanford Insurance and you skim the return address and you throw it away without a second thought. But this stays in the back of your mind. At some future time, even years later, you may buy Stanford Insurance because something in the back of your mind is influencing your decision to do so, without you knowing it. This is a basic principle of advertising like on matchbooks and billboards and everything else
I work at the post office. No such thing as junk mail. It’s called marketing mail. If one is answered, it will pay for the rest of the marketing mailings to your neighborhood.
We used to have a friend that was a mailman 20 years ago who said if it wasn't for junk mail he wouldn't have a job. And he was not joking. We look at where you'd normally put a stamp and if it says pre-sort on it we don't even bother to open the mail we throw it in the box and burn it.
Can’t trick a trickster. I know if I am expecting something from the IRS, bank, auto warranty, power companies, a refund for an over payment and so forth.
Simple logic would say that if it didn't work, if people didn't b buy in response to junk mail, the advertisers would stop doing it. They wouldn't be pens millions s ending out ads if it didn't result in more millions in sales. What bothers me more is junk email. The cost of sending a junk email is close to zero. They can afford to annoy a million people for one sale.
It's junk mail. Not ad mail. Because I don't care how it identifies...Its waste. Its why I say that those green enviormentalists have thier heads up thier rears on this. The post office can pay themselves by amazon deliveries.
It drives me crazy when we expect a public service to pay for itself or be profitable. We don't expect the police, fire department, military to be profitable or pay for itself, but USPS should? Stupid
It would be great to see more logical reasoning in your comment. Privatizing police and fire services could potentially have its benefits, but it would also come with significant challenges. While delivery services are mostly privatized, the USPS has faced increasing competition and has become less and less competitive to a point where direct marketing is the only significant user. Anything important is sent electronically or by other means - e.g., UPS, FedEx. It's important to recognize that private businesses nearly always operate more efficiently and cost-effectively than government-run or government-owned organizations.
Sorry you´re not smart enough to understand my comment. I´m not surprised though, you´re just another capitalist that believes it fixes the world when in reality it causes most of the problems.
Cost concerns are not the point of public services. The main point is that these services are available to _everybody_ regardless of circumstance. USPS is obligated to provide mail service to all US residents. Private carriers don’t have to service everyone / everywhere, and in fact some will use the USPS to make a “last mile” delivery rather than send their own trucks.
"Hand-delivered communications" is the funniest punchline
I donate to charity at Christmas and for the rest of the year they punish me with weekly junk mail. That is apparently where my donation goes.
When I was in college I heard about how junk mail used to be much more dangerous, because junk mailers could legally enter you into contracts where you agreed to pay for something like say a magazine subscription, unless you wrote back to them rejecting the contract (which obviously cost you time and money). It was a term called "entering an implied contract through inaction". And then if you didn't pay the bills they sent you they could sue you for nonpayment or sell the debt to collection agencies to harass you for the money. Eventually people got so fed up with that abuse of contract law that the government changed it and made that method of entering a contract illegal.
That's insane that it was legal to begin with.
Rather than increasing regular postage rates by so much that it kills demand, we should be raising rates on pre-sort instead. It's all about incentives. Businesses still have an incentive to send direct mailers at a higher rate, whereas individuals have a disincentive.
How is it possible that this channel has just 72.9K subscribers? It makes no sense. There should be millions of subscribers.
Fund public mail in a sane manner and make spam illegal. This is a dystopian mail hell that highly favors deals that border on a scam.
When I get a letter that says on the envelope, "important -- open immediately", it gods straight in the trash. I know its junk. really important mail doesn't say " important" on the envelope. It has a return address of "irs audit division".
There should be jail time if you can't opt out, or if you do keep getting unconsentual mail. Same with robo calls
I will never ever deal with a company that uses "stealth mail", particularly if it features "urgency".
I don't even pick up my mail anymore. Maybe once a month and I throw 90% of it away without even opening it. I have everything on autopay so I don't get anything timely in the mail. I don't even look at it much less read it.
Me too. I just trash it! Junk mailers think that Americans are stupid, and maybe many are.
You need to get your mail and empty your box - your carrier probably thinks you’re dead
Gave a donation to an animal welfare charity. Every stray dog, cat, horse, ferret, etc. writes me weekly.
When I was young, I got mail for gym memberships and amusement parks. I realized I was getting old when I started getting mail for nursing homes and funeral plans.
Medicare plans too.
And hearing aids.
Such a waste of paper and resource
Think of all the trees that are cut down and made into paper and cardboard.
If I didn't request it, I don't want it. Not responding to mail offers, email offers, phone solicitations. Garbage. Thankful to live in a place with no mail and NO JUNK MAIL. It's heavenly.
Love that this episode is called “junk mail” and they’re like “we don’t like to call it that.” Also, does anyone who doesn’t work for a data broker think data brokers are okay?
Did the percentage of junk mail go up because there's more junk mail? Or because there's less of everything else? Like, I almost never send or receive s personal letter any more. I send email or a text message. Most of my bills now come by email instead of paper. About the only mail I still get is pleas from charities, political flyers, and advertising.
In Sweden we can say no to junk mail that's not addressed
Balanced. Good job. I'm retired from USPS
Oh cool. Can you do spam calls and maybe “guys who talk at the theater” next?
I like junk mail. It goes in the kindling box and is great for starting fires in the fireplace. But if we could convince marketers to use soft fluffy paper it would really be useful.
A 25% response rate on junk mail that would imply that every one of us responds to one in every four pieces of junk mail. I find that extremely hard to believe.
I suspect the only profit in junk mail is to the companies that manage it for businesses. The direct marketers convince companies that it pays off, but it doesn't
The response rate he mentioned was between 1% and 4% for junk mail. The number that was up to 25% was the conversion rate - which is what percentage of the responders went ahead and purchased/subscribed/whatever.
In some ways it works in an opposite way. If I am feeling tricked, I won't go there, or buy from them.
I signed up with the National Association of Advertisers to be placed on their Do Not Mail list. It's very inexpensive, like 50 cents a year or something like that. My junk mail has practically stopped ... slowed to a trickle.
Ahh YT! You’re reading my mind - again! This morning I posted a comment on a local TV news site regarding a back log of undelivered mail at a newish USPS sorting center. This has been an ongoing problem for months and still not resolved. My comment; “Just checking some stats and see that bulk commercial mail makes up nearly 60% of the volume handled in 2023. It also says that it generates a large amount of their (USPS) income. Maybe, just maybe if we eliminate the junk we wouldn’t have a need for multi million dollar sorting facilities that don’t work. I think I am starting to see cyclical here more junk mail = more money = more new dysfunctional sorting facilities = we need to spend more money to fix it = more junk mail.” It would also save a lot of space in our overflowing landfill, as this is where 99% of the useless junk ends up.
Don’t forget you have a postmaster general who hates the post office.
If i wanted it, I'd be at the store buying it. I'd rather have my time back than reading your junk, thanks.
I don’t understand how people are tricked by these methods. Without much practice, you can open assess and toss what you don’t want without even seeing who it’s from.
My terminology for Junk Mail is Commission Reduced Advertising Post.
I like to sent Junk mailers their CRAP back
The idea of junk mail, there's a term for this but I forget , junk mail creates a subconscious impression. You may get a junk mail offer from Stanford Insurance and you skim the return address and you throw it away without a second thought. But this stays in the back of your mind. At some future time, even years later, you may buy Stanford Insurance because something in the back of your mind is influencing your decision to do so, without you knowing it. This is a basic principle of advertising like on matchbooks and billboards and everything else
I work at the post office. No such thing as junk mail. It’s called marketing mail. If one is answered, it will pay for the rest of the marketing mailings to your neighborhood.
A dead skunk by any other name still stinks.
Great content, fantastic channel
Use the Amos Tversky method: throw away everything that can’t hurt you.
We used to have a friend that was a mailman 20 years ago who said if it wasn't for junk mail he wouldn't have a job. And he was not joking.
We look at where you'd normally put a stamp and if it says pre-sort on it we don't even bother to open the mail we throw it in the box and burn it.
So gross. So creepy. These folks prey on the vulnerable and it’s not okay.
I used to send out coupons with 10% off labor good until a particular date in large type. The date corresponded to the next coupon mailing.
Junk mail is such a waste.
Can’t trick a trickster. I know if I am expecting something from the IRS, bank, auto warranty, power companies, a refund for an over payment and so forth.
I now hate junk mail a little less
Simple logic would say that if it didn't work, if people didn't b buy in response to junk mail, the advertisers would stop doing it. They wouldn't be pens millions s ending out ads if it didn't result in more millions in sales.
What bothers me more is junk email. The cost of sending a junk email is close to zero. They can afford to annoy a million people for one sale.
95% of what I get is junk mail- just wasteful...sort of like billboards, they are just eye sores. USELESS
So. Mike Gunderson eh?
It's junk mail. Not ad mail. Because I don't care how it identifies...Its waste. Its why I say that those green enviormentalists have thier heads up thier rears on this.
The post office can pay themselves by amazon deliveries.
It's only junk if you're poor.
It drives me crazy when we expect a public service to pay for itself or be profitable. We don't expect the police, fire department, military to be profitable or pay for itself, but USPS should? Stupid
It would be great to see more logical reasoning in your comment. Privatizing police and fire services could potentially have its benefits, but it would also come with significant challenges. While delivery services are mostly privatized, the USPS has faced increasing competition and has become less and less competitive to a point where direct marketing is the only significant user. Anything important is sent electronically or by other means - e.g., UPS, FedEx. It's important to recognize that private businesses nearly always operate more efficiently and cost-effectively than government-run or government-owned organizations.
Sorry you´re not smart enough to understand my comment. I´m not surprised though, you´re just another capitalist that believes it fixes the world when in reality it causes most of the problems.
Cost concerns are not the point of public services. The main point is that these services are available to _everybody_ regardless of circumstance. USPS is obligated to provide mail service to all US residents. Private carriers don’t have to service everyone / everywhere, and in fact some will use the USPS to make a “last mile” delivery rather than send their own trucks.
Capitalism makes everything so much better. We are bizarre creatures.
I love my coupons that come in the mail.
17:14 oh yeah this system of manipulation does work 😢 f*** off with your spin trying to turn this a positive thing
I got a junk mail for pest control. I called them and tented my house.