Ivan Enviroman

More than 100,000,000,000 pieces of junk mail are delivered each year (that’s more than 800 pieces per household). The greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the manufacturing of the 6.5 million tons of paper required for junk mail annually is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of 3.7 million cars.

What can you do to stop it? In the United States, sign up for a service like Green Dimes or 41 pounds, or the free Mail Preference Service. If you know of international services, let us know in the comments.

Why is junk mail just bad marketing? It’s all about trust and time. To market to LOHAS, you must be trustworthy and not waste people’s time. LOHAS customers are resistant to some direct marketing techniques because they see traditional methods as intrusive. Traditional marketing relies on interruption marketing instead of permission marketing. These interruptions include Advertising and Direct Mail. Direct mail is also a waste of resources - who on earth looks forward to junk mail? Billboards and banner ads are visual pollution. In contrast, LOHAS customers respond well to recommendations from their peers, so word of mouth (WOM) marketing is very successful. For the same reason, public relations is effective because usually if someone else is writing about your product, it is newsworthy. Internet marketing is also highly effective, because of two reasons. One, it is essentially word of mouth marketing at the speed of light (email, blogs, and social networks), and two, it provides a large amount of information to prospective customers, so that they can research your marketing claims, read online reviews, and see who else is linking to you and trusting your company.

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