Your Direct Mail/Email program is only as good as your mailing list. If you have done a good job of building and purging your list from your customers, potential customers, inquiries from advertisng and publicity then you are in pretty good shape. You can also mine for potential customers through software like Atomic Email Hunter. However, the email addresses produced are usually run-together, single spaced and have many duplicates. You can also use on-line services like Constant Contact or IContact. What we have found is that the agency is more effective in producing the right kind of copy and illustrations that insure that good inquiry response is developed using these services. When companies try and do this themselves, it lacks some professionalism and continuity because the people responsible usually change a lot...and the deadlines have a tendancy to lapse or lose priority.