This week I will play foreign correspondent…While I rarely travel much internationally, I will brag that I’ve spent the last two weeks in Germany, Prague, Vienna and Budapest. Poor me! 🙂 I will confess that I was not “stationed” on any dangerous battlefields and I am far from roughing it… However, there were some street vendors ...

I recently wrote a piece for copyblogger.com that talks about many of the issues I’ve been speaking about around the country…and for this week’s post, I would like to share that article with you. Here’s my thesis: The fact that e-mail is cheap should not give marketers license to send anything via e-mail that is not given the ...

The subject line of this e­mail was worth millions to Boardroom, the company I’ve helped build over the last 30 years. And the story about how “Deeply and Irrevocably Personal” became part of one of our most famous control packages ever is a story packed with valuable lessons. In his prime, Bill Jayme was the most sought after copywriter in the world…every major magazine/publisher/non profit and every other major mailer in every category wanted him to write for them. He charged top dollar and you had to wait over a year to get on his writing schedule. He wrote some of the most famous (and successful) promotions in the history of direct mail and I am proud to say that we have every one of them on CD for posterity. Bill became close with Marty Edelston (the founder of Boardroom) and I–which led to him helping us launch many products for Boardroom­. After one winning assignment, Marty sent Bill flowers…or balloons…or some other celebratory gift. That was always Marty’s style. Bill then sent Marty a note in a plain white envelope that simply said on the outside: “Deeply and Irrevocably Personal…” Enclosed was a thank you note filled with the pure poetry Bill was famous for –the guy could write eloquently about anything to anyone. He was a one-of-a-kind talent. Marty took Bill’s envelope, marched into to our art department, and told the artist who was mocking up a direct mail piece for one of our niche books, “The Encyclopedia of Estate Planning” (EEP), that he had an envelope test for him to execute. The rest is history… ...

Richard “Dick” Benson was a true master when it came to direct mail…for my money, no one could hold a candle to him when it came to discussing anything to do with that medium. Of course that also made him the most knowledgeable person I could go to on anything to do with direct ...