National Geographic has sent me 10 different 6” x 9” packages over the past couple of weeks, each one selling something different. That’s a lot and it’s a mystery to me why I get them.

In all my life, I probably haven’t bought $100 worth of anything, total, from NG and the last thing was a book over a year ago.

The really odd thing is that all the packages are basically the same thing, like a formula, no matter what each one is selling. Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed if they hadn’t all come so close together. It’s not annoying, just very odd.

What would I do differently? Maybe test just one package that offers everything at once, at least for unproven one-timers like me. It could be in book or magazine form with a window cover and a bound in personalized letter and order form. It’d be easy to print and assemble on a fast web and it’d be a heck of a lot cheaper than 10 expensive individual mailings. Might get more multiple orders, too.

Who knows? Maybe they did test it.

Around the same time, a company in the database business, sent a half dozen self mailers all at once to our agency’s former Miami office (we moved out 4½ years ago) all addressed to people who worked for us in New York City five years back! It’s easier and quicker to just burn money.