Bulk email marketing

And now: Cash for Kitchen Appliances………..

A $300 million [cash-for-clunkers-type federal program] to boost sales of energy-efficient home appliances provides a glimmer of hope for beleaguered makers of washing machines and dishwashers, but it’s probably not enough to lift companies such as Whirlpool (WHR) and Electrolux out of the worst down cycle in the sector’s history.

[Beginning late this fall], the program authorizes rebates of $50 to $200 for purchases of high-efficiency household appliances. The [money is part of the broader economic stimulus bill] passed earlier this year. Program details will vary by state, and the Energy Dept. has set a deadline of Oct. 15 for states to file formal applications. The Energy Dept. expects the bulk of the $300 million to be awarded by the end of November. (Unlike the clunkers auto program, consumers won’t have to trade in their old appliances.)

…[Not surprisingly, appliance makers cheered the news.] Electrolux spokesman Tony Evans calls the federal program a “great opportunity to encourage consumers to replace their old appliances.” Lately, cash-strapped consumers have chosen to repair, rather than replace, hobbled dishwashers and other water-intensive appliances, according to industry analysts. Electrolux says it is readying “aggressive” marketing programs that will run parallel with the rebates, and it’s reasonable to expect appliance makers and retailers will devise additional discounts to amplify the rebates’ appeal. “We will be ready to go when the new incentive programs hit the market,” Evans said.

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/24/and-now-cash-for-kitchen-appliances/

What’s next….??? Care to take a guess ???

I want to mail a 8.5×5.5 flyer (jumbo postcard) to 2,000 here in my own town. What am I looking at as far as bulk pricing? I’m in Tallahassee, FL.

Internet email Spam is where some website takes your email address (maybe you filled out a form or subscription with them), then passes your email address around to the world. You end up clearing out dozens of unwanted emails every time you open Outlook. And the more you “unsubscribe” to emails, the more the marketers just pass your email address onto someone else. You can never fully unsubscribe.

And Spam blocking software is not 100% effective, and sometimes takes up lots of memory and dogs out Outlook.

A solution to this madness? Since we have a national “Do Not Call” registry, I wonder if we should have a national “Do not email” registry. This would prevent many of the unwanted SPAM emails “before” they were sent, rather than forcing the recipient to exercise the “plug the leaking dam” routine with emails “after” they have been received.

Thoughts? Do you support this?

If you do, then write your congressperson at congress.org.

I wrote mine.

I heard that the USPS uses high postage rates on first-class mail and packages, so that they can offer lower rates to commercial bulk-mailers. Are we ordinary citizens being used to subsidize the costs of by-mail advertising for rich corporations, who send us tons of unwanted catalogs that clutter up our mail boxes and just get thrown in the trash, un-looked-at?
vollyballchic and justagrandma. There’s a difference between a bulk order and a bulk mailing. When a store, such as Wal-Mart, makes a bulk purchase, it pays for delivery of the items from the manufacturer to their store, and naturally it is cheaper to buy a lot from one seller than the same amount from many sellers.

But when someone mails a letter, he carries it to the post office at his own expense. Letter writers not only pay the costs of carrying the letter from their town’s post office to another post office across the country (i.e., postage), they ALSO pay to get the letter TO their town’s post office.

There’s no difference, then, between what it costs the post office to receive outgoing mail, whether bulk or letters. It’s zero, in each case.

What’s really happening is that the post office has shifted the burden of corporate bulk mail advertising over to the non-corporate citizen who mails letters and packages. It would be better if corporations paid for their own advertising.

Please take a few things into consideration:

This will essentially eliminate thousands of jobs in the direct mailer market

The Postal Service does not recieve funds from the government, they survive by sales alone. Bulk mailers make up a huge portion of the USPS’s revenue, if lost the USPS could struggle to give the convienience it currently affords to the American public.