Junk mail
You might still think that the US Post Office is a US government agency. It is not. It is a private corporation. Sure, there is that little problem of you going to jail for using FedEx to send a letter but it’s all a private organization. It is also an organization that is going out of business. To stay in business the postal service has to deliver something to your door. What it delivers may not be what you want, and you might not have any way of stopping them from delivering it to you, but they stay in business. Their reason to exist is to EXIST. It has nothing to do with you. About 70% of all the “stuff” in your mailbox is junk mail. That is by number of items. Junk mail represents about 98% of everything in your mailbox by weight.
Sears and others use “carrier route presorted bulk mail.” They do it because it works. The homeowner gets full color pictures of how their home can look and are told all about how “affordable” it all can be.
There is an “800” number included in brochure for the homeowner to use. As you might imagine, these “800” response calls are vastly superior in potential pay off to any other initial contact with the potential customer.
In the case of Sears we have a fantastic demographic. Most of the elderly in the USA remember Sears from their childhood as being pure and wholesome. So here we have an ever-more demented target market who’s few remaining brain cells remember Sears fondly. Time and time again the Sears home improvement salesman will go to a Sears customer’s home and find some old lady who’s mommy bought all of her school clothes at Sears (in 1938) and who then even bought her own children’s school clothes at Sears (in 1955). Buying from Sears is a token, a fond memento of things past, and a return to happier times.
The problem for Sears is that they are still depending upon the ever-more aged and infirm for a customer base. Sear’s stores seem dull warehouses of below average products. They continue to survive on their old reputation. As with the Oldsmobile and the Cadillac, their customer base is dying out.
The airwaves
Lastly, there is radio and TV advertising. Radio is not as effective as TV but some companies use radio because it is cheap and they can target the mindless and the innocent.
Through judicious use of radio station demographics and time slotting they can offer such
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