It has been the fashion in recent years for businesses to abandonn direct mail (using the traditional postal mailing service) in favour of online marketing and email campaigns. Companies are however returning to this marketing tool and being more creative using shaped flyers. These not only get the recipents interest, but some businesses are doubling response rates with these shaped mail drops.

Companies that attempt to generate sales entirely through indiscriminate direct mail, cold calling or email campaigns are going to find the going tough. Unique leads for your niche market are the best leads and by targeting the people who really need your product you stand a better chance of getting the positive response you require. It is important to know who your clients are.

Art by mail or mail art?

Mailart in many respects pushes the boundaries of what can be considered art, it has a surreal or Dada quality about it. Mail art sometimes reaches the mainstream gallery audiences but never really reaches the greater highs.

Mail art is a worldwide art and music movement that began in the early 1960s. the principle is simple you send visual art (but also music, sound art, poetry, etc.) through the international postal system. Mail Art is sometimes known as Postal Art or Correspondence Art. Mail Art is a network, based on the principles of barter and equal one-to-one collaboration.

After a peak in popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Mail Art phenomenon has gradually migrated to the Internet, whose “social networks” were largely anticipated and predicted by the interactive processes of postal collaborations. Nevertheless, Mail Art is still practiced by a loose planetary community involving thousands of mailartists from the most varied backgrounds.

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• International Union of Mail-Artists – IUOMA (thiswindow.org)
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