A night without TV...

Gasp! Shocking I know. Just the thought. But it happened in the Scherting household!

Monday night, I walked the dogs, a friend stopped by to bring me some Delicious tortilla soup (yum, thank you Fern!) and I went to the gym. Came home around 8:30 and thought to myself, let’s try a night without TV!

I’ve been pondering the idea for awhile. Now I love the water cooler chat over why Russell should have won Survivor. I love the witty banter of my favorite Monday night nerds on Big Bang Theory. I love comparing episodes of the Office to real work-life with my co-workers. A night without TV is blasphemy!

I didn’t stop there! No music, no Internet. It was just quiet time with some old magazines from 2007, working on my new vision board…cutting out words, phrases and pictures. Thinking about what I want this year. (btw, 2010 It’s All About Me!)

So you are a marketer, how do you get your messages to me? No TV, no radio, not online. Hmm. Magazines were out-of-date. The database marketer in me says direct mail! I was actually cutting up some mail pieces and catalogs. With everyone relying on e-mail, e-newsletters, Twitter, Facebook etc. a really good mail piece, with the right message to the right person can still work.

Direct mail isn’t dead yet. But don’t take any lessons from credit card companies. Seriously, how many of those checks are they going to send me? Sometimes I get two of the same mailer on the same day. Don’t they de-dupe their list? What a waste! But the AT&T piece with coupon codes for Video-On-Demand movies…now we’re talking. And B2B…I rarely get a compelling message in my physical inbox on my desk. I get annoying cold call voice mail messages but nothing tangible and relevant to support the message. How hard is that?