DeleteMe’s Best Practices for Minimizing Junk Mail

With a majority of Americans now doing their utility billing and banking online, the US Postal Service is now primarily in the business of distributing direct-marketing, or ‘Junk Mail’.

For people wanting to minimize their volume of unsolicited mail, there are fortunately plenty of options that are reasonably effective, compared to the scourge of Robocalls & phone-scammers. Direct-mail organizations, unlike email-spammers or phone-solicitations, tend to be legitimate businesses that have little interest in being blacklisted by USPS.

The following are DeleteMe’s top-tips for reducing junk-mail:

1. Use the tools provided by the Direct Mail industry itself

The Direct Marketing Association provides its own service to opt-out of any of its members marketing campaign:  DMAchoice.org

There is, sadly, an associated $2 fee to register.  However we can assure users that it is money well spent if you are serious about reducing the amount of paper-mail you receive. The main benefit over the long term being that it ensures your address remains off of future marketing campaigns.

There is a free alternative: https://www.catalogchoice.org – however it only allows you to remove yourself from one catalogue/publication at a time.  If you know specifically what it is you want to stop receiving, this is the way to go.If you specifically get an undue amount of insurance and credit-card offers, there is a separate, specific organization that works with financial services industry-related marketing: https://www.optoutprescreen.com

2. Follow DeleteMe’s instructions to remove yourself from Acxiom databases

Acxiom is one of the largest sources of consumer data for direct marketers, and cutting your information off at the source can be extremely effective. 

3. Stop Coupon-Mailings

While the DMAchoice.org website  will help you get off the radar of national marketing campaigns, the next main source of direct-mail is from localized retailers, which  offer coupons and special-offers to locals to encourage store-traffic.  Most of these bulk-coupon mailings are done via the ValPak system, and you can remove yourself from their mailing lists with a few short clicks.

4. Try PaperKarma

A phone app that automates the above-mentioned catalogchoice.org opt-out process; we can’t attest to the consistency of its functionality, but some DeleteMe users have mentioned finding it helpful.