I was soon drowning in the stuff, and my roommates, despite my insistence that I had no idea how I had gotten on such mailing lists, were beginning to avoid me. Enough , I thought. It was time to take arms against a sea of window envelopes, and by opposing end it. Or at least to find out why the psychics and their tree-killing friends were sending me all this crap, and what I could do to make them stop. Not surprisingly, the main reason we all get so much junk mail is that people respond to it.
Direct mail is one of the most absurdly profitable marketing techniques of all time.
And the growth rate of mail-order continues to exceed that of traditional retail sales. Obviously, with such a huge return on investment, most companies will happily strafe you with catalogues and window envelopes if you bear even the slightest resemblance to their target consumer. Companies buy and sell customer information the way Wall Street traders buy and sell stocks, gambling that a mailing list culled from one sector of the market might pay off somewhere else. Your name gets added to these lists every time you send in a warranty card, fill out a consumer survey, subscribe to a magazine, or donate to a charity. Most companies, with the exception of credit agencies and other parts of the financial-services industry, can sell your name as often as they like, to whomever they like, without your knowledge or consent.