Black Friday used to be a day. Now it’s practically a season.
Holiday promotions are starting earlier, shoppers are spreading their spending across more weeks, and retailers are competing for attention long before Thanksgiving arrives. For direct marketers, that creates a familiar problem: how do you get noticed when everyone else is making noise at the same time?
The September Direct Mail Insiders Monthly Report takes a closer look at exactly that challenge—and offers some ideas worth thinking about before your holiday campaigns hit the mailbox.
How Do You Stand Out in a Sea of “Black November” Promotions?
The cover story explores the rise of “Black November” and what it means for businesses using direct mail during the holiday selling season.
The report gets into seven strategies for standing out, including some that challenge the usual holiday marketing playbook.
Should you mail earlier than you think you should? Probably.
Should your holiday offer automatically be another 20% or 30% discount? Maybe not.
And what if your direct mail campaign used a sequence instead of relying on one big holiday mailing?
There’s also a look at the psychology behind curiosity gaps, value anchoring, reducing response friction, and treating existing customers differently—all tactics that can help a mailing compete without simply shouting a bigger discount.
You’ll have to read the full report to get all seven strategies and the examples behind them.
Mailing of the Month: Brilliant Earth
This month’s Mailing of the Month takes a look at a particularly interesting question:
Can you really sell luxury jewelry with a postcard?
Apparently, yes.
Brilliant Earth has been a consistent direct mailer, with 23 campaigns featured in Who’s Mailing What! between 2021 and 2026. The September report takes a close look at one of those mailings and breaks down the details that make it work—from the photography and targeting to the QR code, risk reversal, local showroom connection, and even the paper stock.
It’s a great reminder that a simple format doesn’t necessarily mean a simple strategy.
Are You Giving Customers Too Many Choices?
The report’s Beyond The Mailbox feature takes a fascinating look at what happens after a prospect encounters your offer.
The premise: sometimes flexibility doesn’t make a buying decision easier. It makes it harder.
Drawing on a photography experiment and research into choice overload, the article explores how too many packages, add-ons, payment options, and opportunities to reconsider can leave customers stuck in comparison mode.
And there’s a particularly useful takeaway for marketers: instead of simply presenting a menu of choices, businesses can help customers by recommending the option that best fits their situation—and explaining why.
That idea has some pretty interesting implications for everything from sales proposals to direct mail offers.
Plus: A Lesson in Knowing When to Move
The September Direct Mail Insiders Monthly Report also includes insights from a members’ call, including a memorable piece of advice about what happens when a prospect isn’t taking action—even when they claim they desperately need the solution.
And the SEND-OFF tackles another familiar business problem: perfectionism.
Because sometimes waiting for the perfect campaign, perfect website, perfect offer, or perfect execution means you’re simply waiting too long.
The report makes the case for being “decisively imperfect”—moving forward, learning from what happens, and improving along the way.
That might be one of the most useful reminders in the entire issue.
