Going Green? Are you sure?

A friendly competitor told us they had a client who was no longer going to order brochures about it's services to mail to clients because it was "going green" and emailing them a PDF instead. This is, of course nonsense. They believe that they can save the cost of printing and distribution while bragging about being green at the same time, it won't work! First, the likelihood of their PDF's being opened and read by the recipient has dramatically fallen because the cover email is now one of the hundreds received every day by their clients, most of which are captured by spam filters or deleted before opening. We would think that only a tiny fraction of the intended audience will actually open the PDF, print it out and or actually read it. So, the results of the piece are totally lost. Second, the "green" argument (saving trees and landfills) blithely rises above the reality that the trees that are grown for wood pulp are grown like a crop, just like wheat or corn and consume nothing but energy from the sun. The paper that is produced from them is the most recyclable of products and if it winds up in a landfill, is completely biodegradable. On the other hand, the servers that operate the interned to send those billions and billions of emails every day consume enormous amounts of electricity generated largely by the burning of fossil fuels that send out thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
source: PIASC


Fact, most consumers prefer to receive offers via USPS/mail, and direct mail continues to produce the best return of advertising dollars.