The answer is a resounding ?no,? according to Target Marketing columnist Denny Hatch, who writes: ?With the Can Spam Act and do-not-call laws, snail mail is once again the workhorse of direct marketing. And all direct marketers better learn how to write it, design it, and find precisely the right people to send it to, or they will wind up in the same career ash heap as the smarty-pants, dot-com wizards of the late 1990s.?

Is Denny right? Is direct mail ?hot? again? Does it work and make money? Or does it cause needless tree deaths, as people throw it away without a second glance?

You are the marketing director for a nonprofit. Today in the mail you receive a $50 donation from a first-time donor. When should you send him a letter asking for more money ? and why?

A. Tomorrow.

B. Next week.

C. Next month.

D. Next year.

E. Never.

I’ll post the correct answer in a few days….

When blogging evangelists speak to me, they all say, ?Blogging is a marketing revolution. Why don?t you get that, moron??

When direct marketers speak to me, they all ask, ?What are these blogging guys all hyped up about? No one?s making any serious money with blogs. What a waste of time!?

My opinion, after spending just 2 months in the blogosphere (and a quarter of a century in direct marketing), is that direct marketers are unlikely to embrace blogging any time soon ? for the simple reason that ROI has not been directly demonstrated or measured.

For instance, MB, the marketing director at a major publisher of business-to-business newsletters told me, ?We are paying no attention to blogging, because we see no way to monetize it.?

My challenge to the blogging crowd: How would you respond to MB? Do you have any direct marketers as clients who are making significant money from blogging? Who? How much? How?

Blockbuster’s new commercials promise, ?The end of late fees.?

But of course, that?s impossible: if there is no penalty for returning a movie late, you could keep it forever.

The way it really works: there?s no late fee when you keep a movie a few extra days. But if you don?t return the movie within 7 days, you are forced to buy it at the current retail price.

Then, you can still return the movie you ?purchased? within 30 days for ?a restocking fee plus applicable taxes.? After that, you?ve bought the movie permanently and it?s yours.

Does that make ?the end of late fees? a truthful or deceptive claim? In my opinion, the latter ? they are lying to consumers, pure and simple.

?The end of late fees? is trumpeted in Blockbuster?s prime time TV spots. But the ?fine print? of the deal is printed in a little booklet you can get ? at my local Blockbuster anyway ? only if you ask for it.

My good friend Roger Parker asked me to come up with ?10 success secrets? and talk about them in a teleconference, which we did.

Here?s my list of what I think it takes to be successful:

1. Define what success means to you. Then pursue success as you define it ? not as others do.

2. Love what you do for a living. Noel Coward said ?work is more fun than fun.?

3. Find the intersection of your passions and the needs of the market.

4. Become the best you can be at what you do. Work tirelessly to increase your skill and knowledge.

5. Specialize. Master and dominate a niche of the market, rather than attempt to master the whole market.

6. Be the consummate craftsman. Always DO your best on every job.

7. Be the client?s ally and partner, not his adversary.

8. Do not undercharge. Charge what you are worth. But don?t overcharge; don?t make it difficult for clients to hire you.

9. When in doubt, get money up front.

10. Don?t waste time with things that may be pleasant or entertaining, but do not help you achieve your goals. Value your time as the precious, limited resource it is.

Make sense? Any you would add to the list or dispute?

My good friend Rich Armstrong, one of the top freelance DM copywriters in the country, is no fan of big ad agencies and their creative approaches to direct marketing.

?I don?t think I?ve seen anything quite as frightening as the article in Direct, ?Hot Creatives,? in which a group of big agency creative directors were invited to sit around and talk about the state of the direct marketing business.?

Richard says that what made him tremble was:

1. Many of the folks just switched from general advertising a few years ago.

2. Direct response is a word-driven business, and a lot of the panelists were primarily art directors.

3. Only one of them seemed to know who the late, great Bill Jayme was.

4. Another of the panelists seriously talked about their plan to ?phase out the letter from direct mail packages.?

Richard concludes: ?Thank God most of the real direct marketing in this country continues to be done in-house by clients who have products to sell and the top freelance copywriters and artists they hire to help.?

Who knows more about marketing ? big marketers or small marketers?

The answer may surprise you, but in direct marketing, it?s the big clients, more often that not.

The simple reason: they mail millions of pieces of mail, compared to a SoHo that might mail only a few thousand pieces of mail a year.

Therefore, the large marketer is able to do more testing ? testing of mailing formats, teasers, copy, sales themes, lists, premiums, offers, terms, guarantees, and pricing.

These variables make a huge difference. For instance, the same DM piece sent to the best mailing list can generate up to 10 times the response you?d get mailing it to the worst list.

But here?s the thing ? you don?t know which is the best or worst list until you test.

The more testing you do, the more you learn about what works in the marketplace ? and the better your chances of lasting success.

How can a small marketer regain the edge?

I tell everyone who asks me for marketing advice, ?Look at what the major direct marketers are doing, and do what they do. They know more because they test more.?

Do more testing. Many small marketers don?t test, and they should.

Joseph Sugarman, famous for BluBlocker sunglasses, once said that he would typically test 10 new ads at a time.

Nine would be failures, but one would be a hit ? and that hit more than paid the cost of the other 9 test ads.

Testing is easier and faster online, which takes away your excuse for not doing it.

Did you know that in e-mail marketing A/B split tests, just changing the subject line has increased response 25% to 100% or more?

Or that in direct mail, you can double response by changing the outer envelope teaser and lead ? or even the format and design?

So what are you waiting for? Test it for yourself.

Next time you want to download copyrighted material from the Internet illegally, think of my friend Bob.

?I was a singer-songwriter who had an ?artistic development? deal in Nashville during 2001 to 2002,? Bob wrote me in a recent letter.

?However, the music downloading issues of the past few years killed my Nashville deal. Much of the music industry was hit hard from this illegal activity. From 1999 to 2002, CD sales were down a staggering 30%.?

According to an article in BusinessWeek (12/27/04), online thieves download 2.6 billion illegal music files and 12 million movies a month, costing the music and movie industries millions of dollars a year: “The problem is finding a way to protect copyright holders without blocking important innovations such as the iPod.”

As Harlan Ellison explained to me when I interviewed him for the May 2004 issue of Writer?s Digest magazine:

?There is a culture of belief today that everything should be free. The Internet is the glaring promoter of such slacker-gen ?philosophy.?

?People have been gulled into believing that everything should be free, and that if a professional gets published, well, any thief can steal it, and post it, and the thug feels abused if you whack him for it.

?I?ll go to speak at a college, and I?ll have some kid stand up and say, ?Well, writers shouldn?t be paid; they should put their stuff up; and if people like it they get paid for it.? And I think: what the hell looneytune universe are you living in, kid? The question indicates a total lack of understanding of how Reality Works. This kid?s been living off mommy and daddy too long.

?These mooks don?t think of writing as a craft or even as an occupation. They think it?s some kind of dilettante behavior. Much like their own lives.?

So let me ask: Why are people who advocate Citizens Publishing so dead set against business models where creators charge money — and get paid — for fiction, journalism, music, art, and other content?

Why should ?content be free,? as so many Internet enthusiasts insist ? while people in all other professions, from plumbers to psychotherapists, get paid for their expertise, talents, and efforts?

What say you?