Snail Mail Press Release

We just released a Press Release that was a flop. I've been trying to figure out what that is,
especially compared to the Press Release I sent out 10 years ago for a
physical product I invented; I got tons and tons of coverage on that.
For $1,000 of expense for that campaign, I got over $60,000 worth of
orders. I think the difference is this: On the Press Release that I sent
out in 2001, it was a snail-mailed letter that went to all these small &
medium sized newspapers (community newspapers) nationwide. Our email press
release that we recently sent went to those same papers, but it was in
email format. And we all know what happens to 99.99999% of commercial
email... yup, deleted without being read.

For a few hours last week, I searched online to try to find some place that
still sells snail mail mailing lists for PR purposes, but I can't find any!
I wonder if that method of doing PR has completely disappeared. Do you guys know if anything like this still exists, or any other ideas?

If you're looking for community newspapers in the US why not try going through the Newspaper Associations. SNA (http://www.suburban-news.org/) were great when I used them.
Or the NAA NAA.org

How many people are you sending this to? I would encourage you to do the snail mail release. And to also look at some other Q & A on this site. How do I promote my business offers a lot of wisdom around self promotion and PR when launching. Good luck.

Strange as it my seem, snail mail and newspapers are still a good way of reaching 60-70% of the market. Internet penetration, attention span and trust is still just in the early adopter/early majoirty phase ...

Depending on your target demographics and style of product you will still have far more luck in the traditional media ... I think mainly because if people do pick up a newspaper they still give it their full attention, where as, unless you advertise on stackexchange or maybe facebook (doubtful) you have no hope of getting to me or most of the people I know.

The snail mail lists are still out there, I delete spam and bin hardcopy stuff from them on a weekly basis ... you just need to get yourself on the their list once, because your never coming off again.