PORTLAND, Ore., April 27, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- In conjunction with Arbor Day 2005, Unmailme.com today announced the beta availability of its new Internet service that seeks to significantly reduce the 100 billion pieces of unsolicited -- and ignored -- advertising mail sent to U.S. homes and businesses each year. In addition to the expense and annoyance people experience from receiving these mailings, the vast majority end up in landfills -- the equivalent of more than 1 billion trees.
Unmailme.com tackles the problem head on by giving people and businesses the power to remove themselves from lists. First, they can use the Unmailme.com Mail Contact Wizard to automatically generate and send "unsubscribe me" letters to senders of documents they don't need or want. Second, they can enroll in Unmailme.com's Mail Preference Service (MPS) that helps ensure they only receive offers that are potentially interesting.
"Despite 30 years of refinement, `target marketing' has yet to improve upon an average 1 percent response rate," said Ron Wiener, Unmailme.com founder and CEO. "The U.S. Postal Service, commercial printers, list bureaus and all direct marketers are fighting against cost increases while mailbox clutter gets worse every year. Plus, it is a tremendous waste of natural resources including trees and water."
Most previous attempts at a universal suppression file like the MPS have had only moderate impact because they offered an all or nothing proposition -- get on the list and all ad-mail will presumably stop. Studies recently commissioned by the U.S. Postal Service have shown that most people in fact want to receive direct mail offers -- as long as the mail is for something of interest to them and not annoying junk mail.
In contrast, Unmailme.com lets people pinpoint their interests from a list of 80 commercial and 35 non-profit categories. Leading list providers in turn will use the MPS to suppress or remove names of people who indicated they do not want mail in certain categories. As a result mailers will for the first time be able to tell in advance which names they should avoid using on a product-by-product basis.
Over time, this increased accuracy will lead to a diminishing of mail volume and higher response rates for mailers. Each tenth of a percent improvement in response rate yields dramatic reductions in the consumption of trees; oil and water required to make paper; the ink and chemicals required to print on the paper; and the energy costs of transporting the mail through the postal system -- and then back to the dwindling landfills.
"This is a service that is only possible via the Internet," said Wiener, pointing out that people's interests and needs are constantly changing. "In addition to the benefit to the environment, we're offering a way for consumers to cut down daily clutter while delivering lower costs and increased profits to direct marketers. This is a triple win."
Free Enrollment
Unmailme.com is now in beta test mode until 1 million residential and 250,000 business subscribers have enrolled. Beta subscribers have complete access to all of the site's functions, including 50 free uses of the Mailer Contact Wizard, plus automatic five-year enrollment in MPS. Users will be able to purchase additional wizard "contacts" in groups of 200 for $10 or 1,000 for $50 -- as low as 5 cents per contact.
Unmailme.com's primary source of revenue will be from renting its Mail Preference Service suppression file to the services bureaus that process lists for bulk mailings, helping to keep the costs low for subscribers and reducing campaign costs for mailers at the same time.
"A service like Unmailme.com has been long overdue in the direct marketing industry," said Richard Rosen, founder of AlloyRed, a leading direct marketing agency. "We want to demonstrate that the industry can creatively address the problem of mailbox clutter on its own without the need for legislative involvement. Unmailme.com's solution strikes a perfect balance and I expect it to achieve widespread adoption with both subscribers and mailers."
Community Rewards Program
To encourage people to make a difference, Unmailme.com will launch a user rewards program based on a combination of referrals and usage volume. Unmailme.com tracks how many unsubscribe requests each user makes, and how many times their name comes up when mailers use the MPS files. Every month Unmailme.com will award a special gift to the top user honoring their effective contribution to the environment and the economy. The first award will be presented on July 1, 2005.
About Arbor Day
Held the last Friday in April, this year April 29, Arbor Day is a nationally celebrated observance that encourages tree planting and preservation. More information on Arbor Day and ways to celebrate it can be found at The National Arbor Day Foundation website www.arborday.org
About Unmailme.com
Unmailme.com delivers the first effective approach to reducing the volume of unsolicited, undelivered and unwanted mail cluttering mailboxes today. It gives consumers and business control over the mail they want and don't want, while giving the mailers an effective way to improve response rates, ultimately helping safe the environment. Unmailme.com is sponsored by privately held Remote Control Mail Corp., based in Portland, Oregon (www.remotecontrolmail.com).