Fake "Handwriting" Boosts Junk Mail Open Rate

Fool junk mail recipients once, and then Fake penkeep fooling them over and over again. That's the hope of a Virginia-based direct mail marketing company that has developed a specialized machine that makes junk mail envelopes look like they have been hand-written. RST Marketing, a Virginia-based, direct-mail marketing company, custom-makes its "Real Pen" machines and markets the technology to cash-strapped nonprofits and others seeking to raise funds or sell products through the mail. The machines can use any kind of pen, can create a custom font from any person's actual handwriting, and can even use multiple handwriting styles on the same page. RST can crank out hundreds of thousands of fake hand-addressed envelopes per day. Its high-tech machines can even fake hand-write yellow sticky notes and affix them to marketing materials by machine. The machines make envelopes look like they've come from a real person who may actually know or care about you. RST Vice President Glen Thomas says, "With Real Pen, the machines run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and they never take a break and never take lunch." The fake "personal" touch helps lure unsuspecting mail recipients into opening junk mail more often. Testimonials on the company's web site say the open rate for fake handwritten junk mailers is about equal to the open rate for real handwritten mailers.

Comments

...it could have replaced all the "Linda Greens" signing those gazillions of foreclosures and given them the same handwriting. Still might, for that matter.

...Looks like it could have an application with the big banks as an industrial-strength robo-signer (that doesn't take a lunch break!)

yeah until you flood people with this crap, and then they become desensitized and spiteful of all mail and stop opening anything or learn a trick to spotting it because they are sick of being harassed.

This article was written six years ago, and now this "handwritten" junk mail is everywhere. As with all advertising tricks, these things are easy to spot once you've seen enough of them.