E-mail is still an extremely mailing list effective mechanism for campaigns sent to our customers' internal databases. When it comes to using external lists, however, the response rates have dropped precipitously over the last five years and yet the price for the lists has remained constant. The result is that the cost per lead for e-mail has been driven up significantly. With many of our large, blue chip accounts who used to use e-mail as their primary lead generation vehicle, we are now seeing response rates mailing list and cost-per-lead ratios from direct mail that far surpass the results from e-mail." Marketers can draw from a wide variety of direct-mail vehicles to suit specific campaign objectives: letters, packages, promotional items, postcards, brochures and publications like newsletters. Some companies have used newsletters as very effective lead-generation, cross-selling and relationship-growing tools, empowered by comprehensive databases compiled by list brokers. Newsletters are often the most effective type of direct mail because they are less likely to be discarded in corporate mailrooms than brochures. They reach targets' desks--the first threshold a direct-marketing campaign.