Mike Panaggio of DME - 2011 Printing Industry Hall of Fame Inductee

By Erik Cagle

Direct Mail Paves the Way

As the school's eventual all-time leading men's basketball scorer, Mike Panaggio quickly learned that he could leverage his SUNY-Brockport fame off the hardwood. One of his earliest business ventures was doing driveway sealing. Though Brockport, NY, was a small town of 10,000 people, that meant there were enough workable driveways to keep Panaggio in high cotton.

But how to spread the word? Panaggio worked out his own version of direct mail.

"Normally, you would take an advertisement out in the penny saver, asking people to call for a free estimate," Panaggio says. "I figured, why not give everybody an estimate, because it's not that big of a town. And I mailed them estimates.

"That was my introduction to direct mail. That concept was personalized and relevant to the individual. It was their driveway, they knew the price, knew what materials would be used, and they knew who I was."

This was 1975. Panaggio was only about 25 years ahead of his time.

"It was very successful; I had seven people working for me," he enthuses. "It was a monopoly!"

To call Mike Panaggio a printer would be a largely inaccurate statement, or at least a less descriptive title. The man is an incurable entrepreneur. He was providing marketing services—as Barbara Mandrell might say—when marketing wasn't cool, or on the lips of seemingly every printer in the country. And he knew that personalization, not the generic broadcast mailings, would someday become a game changer in the world of direct mail.

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2011 Hall of Fame : Mike Panaggio - An Entrepreneur at Heart