Quote:
Originally Posted by bainsey
All the talk about brushes with greatness, and THIS is the line that intrigues me most.
Among other parts of my day job, I support an online sales website, so the pioneering of direct mail -- the precursor -- intrigues me. Mark, what did the dealership sell via mail? I can't imagine cars were on the menu.
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It was a monthly newsletter to all their customers. Each newsletter was specific to that customer, i.e.: letting them know when it was about time to trade, keeping track of when they might have a kid who was now old enough to get a car, etc. This was based on information they gathered when they first dealt with the customer. My stepfather owned an ad agency and he developed this program and the car dealer (Bauer Buick in Harvey, Illinois) was a client of his. He got me the mailroom job. After a short time of using this program, he got together with the dealership owner and they found some IBM computer dudes to computerize the program (remember, this was in the late 60s) and sell it to car dealerships across the nation. The computer dudes were living in Portland and in order to form the company properly, my family moved here. The company is Poorman-Douglas Corporation, named after the two computer guys.