When you really lose customers; Net profits: They've changed e-mail addresses without telling you. But new services mean wayward clients aren't gone forever

Entrepreneur, Jan, 2002 by Melissa Campanelli

Another approach is suggested by Chase. "If I had a mailing list of customers and was losing customers' e-mail addresses at an alarming rate," he says, "I would compile a list of lost e-mail addresses and then prepare a [snail-mail] piece that I can mail out to these customers in a timely fashion that says something like, 'You've changed your e-mail address; we'd like to get it back.'"

Sometimes, it seems, the tried-and-true traditional methods-such as good old direct mail-still work best at getting results.

MELISSA CAMPANELLI is a marketing and technology writer in Brooklyn, New York.

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