Fearless Flyer

I love flipping through (and even reading) Trader Joe's Fearless Flyers. There is no other piece of unsolicited mail that I even bother with. When you consider the cost of acquiring mailing lists, scrubbing them, segmenting the consumer population, matching the names back to internal databases, setting up a marketing campaign, glossy print, postage and all - the numbers add up quickly.

After all that is done, the average recipient of these materials tosses them into trash without a second thought. The Fearless Flyer on the other hand, is printed on really cheap paper, it is anything but flashy and is takes no trouble to target messaging by way personalization.

Yet there is something about the Flyer that makes me want to read about products I have not considered buying before. Even if I don't buy, I am at least aware of what is available - a good enough engagement metric by most counts. Occassionally, the reading has translated into an actual purchase - which is exactly the kind of conversion marketeers want to see happen.

Being that the fans of the Fearless Flyer abound, I am not a demographic anomaly. Obviously they are doing something right with it. You have to wonder what makes the Flyer (and by extension Trader Joe's) tick at a time when the consumer is innundated by slick narrowly targeted ads online and offline.