He sells product. Sometimes he gets very creative with the list. In his last letter, I noticed my name was between Alfonse D'Amato and Joey Buttafuoco. But generally, he does list his most recent customers, some of his better-known customers, and certainly some of his best customers. He tells me he gets a 15 percent response rate to these letters, compared to a 1- percent response when he doesn't list the names.
People love to hear and see their names.
The more you use them, the more likely you are to get a positive response in a direct-mail campaign. How you do it is up to you. You can roll the dice and spend big bucks with a personalized approach and customized letters to thousands of people. Or you can do a few at a time to see if it works first. Then again, you can be clever and creative to give the appearance of personalization.