A Direct-Marketing Company Built Before “Data-Driven” Became a Buzzword.
Mail Marketing Plus was a Steele family direct-marketing company in Wichita, Kansas. Founded by Jack Steele in 1977, the business grew into a national operation with deep experience in the tire and automotive-service industry, direct mail, database management, targeting, production, and campaign execution.
MailMarketingPlus.com was reacquired by Eric Steele in 2026 to preserve the company’s history, document the Steele family’s direct-marketing lineage, and connect that experience to Eric’s current work.
A national direct-marketing business with deep automotive roots.
Founded in Wichita
Jack Steele founded the business in Wichita. Public memorial sources summarize the company under its later Mail Marketing Plus name and describe it as a national direct-marketing company.
Bridgestone/Firestone locations
Jack Steele’s published obituary states that over time the company produced direct-mail advertising at least once for all 1,700 Bridgestone/Firestone company-owned stores across the United States.
Acquired by Valley Offset
Valley Offset Printing publicly announced its acquisition of Mail Marketing Plus effective January 2017, describing MMP’s history of high-quality direct-mail campaigns.
A family business in the literal sense.
Jack & Virginia Steele
Jack Steele founded and led the company. Virginia Steele worked alongside Jack beginning in 1977 as the family business grew into a national direct-marketing operation.
Eric Steele & the next generation
Eric Steele spent nearly 25 years in the business, with database management, targeting, campaign execution, production coordination, and direct-response work at the center of his experience. His sister Linda Steele Thom also worked part-time in the company and was publicly identified in 2005 as Director of Business Development.
The database was never an afterthought.
Mail Marketing Plus operated in an era when direct mail required more than sending a file to a printer. The work could include database organization, segmentation, geographic targeting, offer strategy, creative coordination, print production, postal preparation, fulfillment, and campaign execution.
For Eric Steele, the database side became the central discipline: understanding the audience, manipulating and segmenting data, determining who should receive what, coordinating the channel, and measuring what happened afterward.
Mail Marketing Group → Mail Marketing Plus.
The client book moved to a longtime printing partner.
In January 2017, Valley Offset Printing of Valley Center, Kansas announced that it had officially acquired Mail Marketing Plus after more than 35 years in business. Valley described the continuity in terms of direct-mail campaigns, database management, variable-data printing, fulfillment, and targeted mailing capability.
The acquisition ended Mail Marketing Plus as the Steele family’s operating business, but the knowledge and relationships built there did not disappear.
The company is history. The expertise is not.
Eric Steele does not intend to relaunch Mail Marketing Plus as a competing operating agency. The historical site instead documents the experience behind several current projects:
DirectMail.ink
Modern direct-mail strategy, database thinking, campaign architecture, vendor coordination, and execution.
Data Mining Doctor
Database analysis, customer intelligence, segmentation, targeting, mapping, and finding value inside accumulated data.
Mobile Marketing Plus
A modern extension of database-driven direct response into mobile/SMS and integrated multichannel marketing.
Eric’s broader professional history, speaking, consulting, and current projects are connected through EricSteele.com.
History is not a claim of current affiliation.
References to Bridgestone, Firestone, Valley Offset Printing, and other companies on this archive describe historical business relationships or surviving public records. No current endorsement, partnership, agency relationship, or affiliation with those organizations is implied.