Stop Junk Mail #3

Do you get more solicitations for donations than you can stand? Are trees felled to simply support charitable organizations' solicitation initiative which means junk mail to you? I have to say I admire how thoroughly many not-for-profits understand direct marketing – they know how many times to mail to you per month, what to say in those letters, when to include a self-addressed-stamped envelope or comment that your stamp will help support finding a cure for (fill in the blank) and a whole barrel of other things to get money into their bank account for their worthy causes. And, enough is enough.

As many of you readers know, my Dad passed away early this year. Putting a change of address at his post office has resulting in more solicitations per week than I used to get per year. I am the most persistent junk-mail reductionist you'll ever meet. And I've found a new step to take.

First a reminder: Step 1 to stop junk mail is Opt-Out and the Direct Marketing association website. Here's the first article on that here at the PCafe: Stop Junk Mail.

To stop the stuff coming to Dad I have a two action approach.

#1 – Open the solicitation. Cut out the portion of the letter that contains his (your) address. Put a bright post-it on requesting that this address be removed from the charity's lists – all lists – and that you are Opting Out. Use the enclosed envelope (even if you have to put your own stamp on it) and send in your request.

#2 – Go to the charity's website. Today I did the Alzheimer's Association.
Find the 'contact us' button and click on it.
At the bottom of the page find the privacy policy link. Click on it.
Read until you find the section on mailing to you. At Alzheimer's Association it said the following:

Your choice

We respect your privacy and recognize that you may wish to limit the ways in which we contact you. Simply send an e-mail to info@alz.org with the following information:

• To remove your name from mailing lists shared with other organizations, please provide your full name, mailing address and a sentence requesting removal.
• To remove your name from the Alzheimer's Association postal mailing list, please provide your full name, mailing address and a sentence requesting suppression of your personal information in our files.

To review or correct your personal information with the Alzheimer's Association, please provide your name and a sentence requesting a review or a correction.

Then, follow their instructions.

Be sure to put "Opt Out" in the subject line of an email.
Then, cross your fingers.

 

I'm hoping this works. It seems like a very professional option. I'm wary because writing that email resulted in one society asking me about a donation. Click on this picture to see what happened.

Well, it's worth a try especially as this big push for your year-end donations starts during the upcoming holidays. I'll let you know how it goes.

Comments

[sc1quail]

I sign up at MyJunkTree.com and they have stop about 90 percent of my junk mail from my mailbox. I like it because it give me one central location at which I can stop the junk mail and solicitations. A great site, thanks Tim!

[Tim]

I happen to be one of the owners of MyJunkTree and as a new company I search the web to see if we are getting any visibility out there and I post n relevant Blogs.

We launched the company because we were tired of all the junk mail we were receiving and we personally did not want to bounce all over the web to contact all the different companies to stop it all. First and foremost we wanted to let people choose what they wanted to let come to their home knowing that some people really do like some of the coupons and catalogs. So our clients choose what they want stopped.

We also had to provide a service that is different than the other services out there, so here is what we offer:

1. We have a database of over 1300 catalogs that you can choose to stop.
2. We have over a 4000 charities/Non-Profits that you can stop solicitations from.
3. Stop the delivery of the national phone directories.
4. Stop the delivery of the weekly coupons.
5. Stop the general credit card offers as well as the ones from your own major bank.
6. Stop the miscellaneous junk mail from the data brokers.
7. You can register on the National Do Not Call Registry from the website.
8. You can order your no strings attached free annual credit report right from the website.
9. We plant trees with every new membership.

And, yes we are a paid service and yes you can do everything that we do for free, if you want to do all the research and spend the time contacting the companies yourself it can easily be done. We have just done all of the legwork for our clients and feel there is value in the service we provide. So check out MyJunkTree and make difference in our mailbox.

[Margotb]

Susan, You have some great info here for stopping junk mail, the key as you say is persistence. I would also like to offer up some advice for your deceased dad. You can go to the DMA's Mail preference site at www.dmachoice.org, go to the Consumer Assistance page and scroll down to the note about "How to remove deceased individuals names from marketing lists" This is called the DDNC, Deceased Do Not Contact list. You can add your dad's name to this list. This is a free service.

At www.stopthejunkmail.com we offer a service that can help simplify your junk mail goals, the info you mentioned about the ALZ is one of many companies contained in our junk mail directory, our members simply logon to select the junk mail item they wish to stop and we do the rest. We have already done all the upfront research for our members.

Keep up the good work.