Inside Direct Mail goes full-color, printed on glossy stock--for a magazine look.

As the burgeoning world of the internet changes the face of newsletter publishing--moving many, among other steps, to take online advertising and sponsorships--print versions of newsletters are also finding new ways to beat the competition.

Inside Direct Mail, formerly Who's Mailing What!, is a good case in point. Last summer editor Hallie Mummert wrote her readers:

We haven't had much to smile about recently, with the sound beating of sweepstakes promotions in the publishing world, diminishing response rates, the recent price hike on paper and an impending price hike on postage as the cherry on top. It's getting pretty serious in the world of direct mail.

To bring you some good news in the face of these challenges, Inside Direct Mail is happy to announce a few improvements you'll notice over the next couple of months.

First off, we're going technicolor! Starting next month, you'll be viewing every direct mail package featured in our newsletter in full color; you won't miss a single detail on the tests or controls that are keeping direct mail marketers in the black. Plus, we'll be able to devote less copy to describing the artwork and more to how all the elements work in tandem.

What the changes also afford is a more effective medium for the newsletter's advertisers--four and a half pages' worth out of 32.

The editors have also added new columns, like the "How-To Workshop" (shown lower right) and "Premium Watch" (a list of premiums that are being offered by leading mailers).

And Mummert's certainly right about an improvement in the showcasing of the DM packages they review. The result is a snappy, impressive, new newsletter for the new millennium. It's starting to look more and more like a magazine, which we told Hallie Mummert on the telephone.

She said, "It's a one-of-a-kind newsletter. We feature magazine-like illustrations of the direct mail packages, and we don't offer 'news.' Sometimes we wonder what we are.

Asked about how promotion is going, she said that subscribers and prospects have reacted very favorably to the full-color format. "But it's still too early in the game to tell what the real response will be," Mummert said.

They're also offering a one-issue forced free trial to selected names from their sister magazine, Target Marketing.

The printed newsletter is the only version currently being offered, but now that they've completed the makeover, the staff will concentrate more on the web site.

Art director is Harish Ullal. Publisher is North American Publishing Co., of which Irvin J. Borowsky is founder and chairman and Ned S. Borowsky president and CEO.

"The best news of all," Mummert concludes in her note to subscribers, "None of these changes cost you a penny! Subscription rates [12x, $195/year] are staying steady as a rock."