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 their names.
People love to 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.