Nobody likes to fail. But when it comes to direct-mail efforts, lessons that arise from stunning failures often can lead to stunning success

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

Oops! We Did It Again!
Submitted by Kathryn Conway, Merkle

[A member of our fundraising team] had a situation many, many years ago (pre-Merkle) when they were doing a personalized letter for a political organization and inadvertently addressed all of the letters “Dear Friend.” At the lettershop, after all the letters were printed — and it was a lot — they hired people to cross out the “Dear Friend” and handwrite in the actual personalized salutation, which, of course, they had to pay for. The result was such a dramatic increase in response and revenue that they did it again the following year — this time on purpose.