As an aside, GoCardless open-sourced their API docs https://github.com/gocardless/api-docs .
"Dont be afraid to use customer data" seems like a dangerous general recommendation to make for an article recommending using the API to send postcards that are open to the world to read. Now I can't just discard spam mail adressed to "Resident", I'll have to read it all and make sure to shred it in case it has some sensitive data automatically encoded into the postcard?
There's still a direct mail industry, but it's all about getting the big discounts available if you send in bulk and pre-sort everything. It's a form of spam; most of it is discarded.
Worse, people who still pay any attention to paper mail are likely to send you back a reply on paper or call you. Now you need a mail room, a data entry operation, and a call center.
I'm not all that happy about paper spam either, but this makes sense depending on your target demographic. If you're selling to seniors, for instance...
On the other hand, between the Valpacs and the Red Plums, I do get occasional good things. A reminder that my sprinkler system needs to be winterized, or a card reminding me that my dogs are due for their vaccines. These things could be email-based, but a postcard is a great point of initial contact with a customer.
As a developer I am excited to see if I can use this service to send out party invitations, birthday cards, etc. Combined with a database of people's addresses and birthdays, I could automatically send postcards to lots of people, whereas doing it manually would mean that I would constantly forget.
