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The Direct Mail Solution — Chapter-10: Technical Details That Help You Create Better Mailings--and Save You Money, Too!
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167
Technical Details That
Help You Create Better
Mailings—and Save
You Money, Too!
ITH EVERYTHING WE’VE DISCUSSED SO FAR, YOU NOW HAVE A
good understanding of the important issues involved in
running a direct-mail campaign.
But now we come to some of the finer details that experts know.
These are the secrets that will help you get the very most out of every
advertising dollar you spend. And that’s how you multiply the profit-
making potential in every piece of mail you send out.
Cleaning Up Your Mailing List: How Merge Purge
and Data Hygiene Can Save You Thousands
Even the best mail list may have duplicate names, old and
undeliverable addresses, or some names that you may not want to
mail to. By cleaning up the list you can save a great deal of money.
W
CHAPTER
10
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It’s like trimming out the weeds so only the good crops are growing
in your field, and you’re not wasting your water and plant food on
something that can’t bring you any return.
Most large mailers take advantage of running the processes of “merge
purge” and “data hygiene” on their lists. As a result, they often end
up saving themselves thousands of dollars. One of my clients recently
informed me that by following my advice, it instantly saved $52,000.
Unfortunately, it’s usually the small mailers—the ones with the
least money to waste—who pass on this vital step when putting together
their direct-mail campaigns. But you can use the advanced direct-mail
information in this section to keep from throwing away money.
Merge purge and data hygiene are the processes used to clean up
your mail file. They will help you limit the number of undeliverable
records, take out duplicate records, and suppress records you do not
want to mail. The combination of merge purge and proper list hygiene
will give you these three main benefits:
- By reporting the undeliverable names you find, you can get deductions on your rented lists that will lower your list rental cost. You shouldn’t have to pay for duplicate records within the same list or records that have invalid address and ZIP code infor- mation. A good list broker will deduct these bad records/names from your invoice.
- The post office doesn’t want to deal with undeliverable or returned mailing pieces. That’s why discounts on postage are available if you use the tools provided by the Postal Service to clean up and presort your list. It can save you thousands.
- If you order 10 lists from different companies, each of which is based on the same criteria, there are bound to be some duplicates between the lists. By cleaning up your lists, you eliminate these duplicate records, which saves you money on printing and post- age. It will also keep prospects from being annoyed by receiving multiple sales pieces from you.
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Quick and Easy $52,000!
My friends Curt Dawn and Kirsit Hegg are savvy
direct-mail marketers who’ve been doing it for a long
time. They recently gave me a wonderful testimonial.
“Craig Simpson has always given us solid advice on
direct mail. He recently had us make one change to
our direct-mail campaigns, and it instantly saved us
$52,000!”
This is a real testimonial, and it concerns real money. The
simple tip I gave them that could save you thousands, too, is
exactly what we’re talking about here: Make sure you run a
merge purge to eliminate duplicates on every mailing you run.
If you are mailing a list with 5,000 names on it, there is a
good chance that there are duplicates on that list. It doesn’t
matter if it’s your house file or a rented list—you must check
for duplicates.
It’s common for people to rent a list of names and assume
that the list manager did his job and sent you a list of names
with no duplicates in it. The odds of you receiving a clean list
are rare. I bet 98 out of 100 have duplicate names in them.
Let’s take this one step further. Let’s say you have two dif-
ferent lists—List A and List B. Not only does List A have
duplicate names within itself, but there is a very good chance
there will be names that are on both List A and List B. If you
do not remove the names from one of the lists that are on
both lists, then many individuals will receive two sales pieces
from you.
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You have many options for how you will run a merge purge. There’s
software you can buy, you can develop your own software, or you can
pay a data processing company to run the merge purge for you.
I prefer to use the professional services of a data-processing
company. A good data-processing company will have access to the
Postal Service files you need to clean up your list and get postage
discounts. It’ll also help guide you on what parameters to use when
running a merge purge, for example, whether you want it performed at
a household level or an individual level, or at a home or business level.
Quick and Easy $52,000!, continued
Think about the waste you have if you are mailing the same
person the same piece at the same time. If printing and post-
age is costing you $0.65 per piece and you can cut 500
duplicates, you’ll save $325 in printing and postage. If you are
doing large mailings and you cut out 5,000 duplicate names,
you’ll save $3,250.
It’s not uncommon to cut 25 percent of the lists, not only
because of duplicate names but also bad addresses, incom-
plete ZIP codes, or to remove existing customers from the mail
file. If you are mailing 100,000 pieces and only 75,000 are to
people who you should actually mail to, then cutting 25,000
names would save over $15,000 in printing and postage.
Plus, also consider that for every duplicate name, you’re not
mailing to an actual prospect, so you’re possibly losing sales.
So, if you ever think that doing a merge purge is a bit of a
hassle and you’re tempted to skip it now and then, I hope this
story about a $52,000 savings will make you reconsider.
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If you are selling tax software designed for small businesses, there
may be a huge advantage to specifying the parameters for your merge
purge. If you’ve found from past campaigns that you sell more software
packages to small business owners if you mail to their home rather
than their business address, you’ll want to make sure you reach them
at home whenever possible. You can set the merge purge parameters
to select the home address for all duplicate records. For example: A
duplicate name may have two different addresses.
Simpson’s Shoe Repair Store
Simpson’s Shoe Repair
Craig Simpson
Craig Simpson
123 Main Street
987 Summer Drive
Any Town, NY 12345
Any Town, NY 12345
One address may appear to be a business location, and the other
address may appear to be a home address. If your data processing
company is able to distinguish the difference between the two, you
would have them keep the “At Home” address. Based on your experience,
you should improve your mailing response rate if you are able to get
your data-processing company to use this parameter.
Finding Duplicates Across Lists Saves Money
on Printing and Postage
If you mail more than one sales piece to the same person in the same
mailing, then you’re wasting the money spent on printing and postage
for the extra piece. Plus, you’re not sending to another prospect who
might have placed an order. Here’s a quick example.
Let’s say you sell a limited edition coin to collectors, and you want
to do a mailing to 50,000 people. You order 10 lists of 5,000 names each
from your list broker, all related to coin collecting. Because all the lists
have a common interest, there will be some duplicate names among
them. If you mail these lists without a merge purge, you could end up
wasting thousands of dollars on extra printing and postage on mailings
sent to duplicate names.
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There are likely 4,000 to 6,000 duplicate names out of the 50,000
because this is a very targeted mailing. If it costs you $0.60 for every
piece you mail, you can easily see how costly duplicate names can be:
5,000 × $0.60 = $3,000
What Happens to the Duplicate Records/Names?
One of the main purposes of the merge purge is to find duplicates
between the files. These duplicate records/names are also called
multibuyers or multis.
Multibuyer names usually end up being very responsive. When you
are selecting lists to rent for a targeted mailing, the lists usually have
something in common with one another. If you are doing a mailing
to promote a newsletter on naturopathic medicine, then the lists
should all be related to wanting to improve health through natural
approaches. This means there will very likely be duplicate names across
the lists. Their interest level in this area is so high that they’ve bought
or subscribed to more than one product or service. Therefore, they are
more likely to purchase again.
Depending on the size of your mailing, these multibuyers are
usually broken down into three groups:
- 2X Multis: Duplicate names that are on two lists
- 3X Multis: Duplicate names that are on three lists
- 4X + Multis: Duplicate names that are on four or more lists The merge purge will ensure you mail the name only one time even though the name appears on more than one list. But these multis can be very useful to you. Because these names are on more than one list, you’ve paid for the name more than one time. And because you are just mailing the name one time in your current mailing, you can also mail the name at a later date. Obviously, you’ll want to wait a few weeks before re-mailing it—otherwise you defeat the purpose of removing the duplicates from the mail file.
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If the multibuyer is a 2X Multi, then you can only remail the same
name a second time. If it’s a 3X Multi, you can mail the same name
three times. A 4X Multi can be mailed up to four times. Always keep
some space between mailings. I like to wait at least four weeks before
mailing the same name again. Depending on the volume of mail you
send out each month, you may want to wait six to eight weeks before
re-mailing it.
Interaction Reports
If you use a data-processing company for your merge purge, make sure
to ask for the reports from the process. You’ll be able to use these to get
discounts on your rented lists.
An interaction report, or a match analysis report, shows what occurred
in the merge purge. It will show you how lists duplicated with one another,
how your suppression file (the list of names you want removed) duplicated
with the rented lists, and how other suppression files (like a prison
suppression file) affected the merge. Not all data-processing companies
offer an interaction report. If your current data-processing company
does not offer one, find another company that does. It may call these
reports by another name, so ask questions.
Figure 10–1 on page 174 is a simplified example of what to look for
in an interaction/match analysis report.
The list name on this interaction report is Naturopathic Medicine
Newsletter. This interaction report shows how Naturopathic Medicine
Newsletter duplicated with all the other lists in the table.
To start with, take a look at the suppression files. The customer
suppression file had 391 matches/duplicates between the two lists. This
means the mailer sent a file of names that it already had in its database
and asked to have these names suppressed/removed from the rented
lists. This customer suppression file could be a list of previous buyers
of the product it is selling or buyers of other products the company has
sold, or it could be an inquiry list that it’s generated. The bottom line
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is, the mailer doesn’t want to spend the money mailing names it already
has in its database. In this instance, the 391 matches will save a few
hundred dollars on printing and postage.
The deceased suppression file (a file of the deceased) had 159
matches. For obvious reasons, you don’t want to mail to the deceased—
I’ve found that they are the least responsive buyers . . .
Last, the prison suppression file had 29 matches. Most companies
do not want to waste their money mailing to someone who is in prison
and probably don’t want or can’t buy the product.
Looking at the rented lists, you can see at the top Naturopathic
Medicine Newsletter is listed and has 98 matches. This means there are 98
FIGURE 10–1 Sample Interaction/Match Analysis Report
List Name: Naturopathic Medicine Newsletter
Quantity: 14,726
List Code
List Description
Quantity
Matches
0000
Customer Suppress* File
3,816,849
391
0997
Deceased Suppress
4,380,569
159
0998
Prison Suppress
22,448
29
0001
Naturopathic Med. Ltr.
14,726
98
0200
Alternative Health Mag.
14,073
82
0201
Alternative Product Byrs
6,919
31
0202
Naturopathic Magazine
4,910
28
0203
Naturopathic Prdt Byrs
3,562
17
0204
Herb Buyers
6,761
23
0205
Herb Report Newsletter
2,333
26
0206
Healthy Alternatives
10,092
95
0207
Healthwise Product Byrs
14,859
133
0208
Healthwise Newsletter
14,566
125
List interacted with 10 lists of 11 main lists with 658 duplicates. (*Suppress is
short for suppression.)
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duplicate records within the file. You can continue down the list and see
how each list “interacted” with Naturopathic Medicine Newsletter.
This interaction report is very simplified. This report shows how
only one list, Naturopathic Medicine Newsletter, interacted with all the
others. In a complete interaction report, you’d see this information
for each list. If you are mailing only a few lists, the interaction report
may only be 10 or 20 pages. If you are mailing to a hundred lists, the
interaction report will be hundreds of pages.
Analyzing the interaction report will help you get deductions on
your list rental invoices. This interaction report shows us that we will
get to deduct 286 names from the Naturopathic Medicine Newsletter List
invoice.
The deceased suppression file had 159 matches
The prison suppression file had 29 matches
Naturopathic Medicine Newsletter had 98 matches/duplicate
records
Total: 286
Most list owners will give you a deduction for these unusable
names. If the list rental cost were $125 per thousand, finding these
deductions would save you $35.75.
286 names × $0.125 list cost = $35.75:
Plus, because you are eliminating these unwanted names, you are
also saving on printing and postage:
286 names × $0.60 printing and postage cost = $171.60
$35.75 list rental savings
$171.60 printing and postage savings
$207.35 total savings for just one list.
That may not sound like a lot, but if you do this for every list, it will
quickly add up.
10 lists × $207.35 = $2,073.50 savings
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Looking at the interaction report with only a few lists will take you
less than 10 minutes. Saving $2,073.50 is not bad for 10 minutes of
work.
Broker Report
In addition to the interaction report, I like to provide the list broker with
a “broker report” that is generated by the data-processing company. A
broker report shows the list broker how many names you get to deduct
because of bad addresses, bad ZIP codes, etc. It also reports some of
the same information that is in the interaction report. Using the two
reports together will allow you to claim the most deductions available
to you. Figure 10–2 is a sample of a broker report.
You can get a copy of this broker report, along with a few others, at
www.TheDirectMailSolution.com.
This is just a simplified version of a broker report. It’s best if you
work with your data-processing company to create a broker report to
your specifications. Use this sample broker report as a starting point.
Here’s what each column represents:
Quantity Expected: The quantity of names you expected to receive
from the list broker.
Quantity Received: The actual quantity of names the list broker
sent.
Convert Drops: Invalid addresses. The address could be missing
the city or state name or have the incorrect state and ZIP code for
a record, etc. Basically, it involves incomplete data.
M/P Input: The quantity input in the merge purge.
ZIP Drops: Records that were dropped due to special drops in the
merge, such as omitting addresses that are located in a region
where a hurricane just hit or where the Postal Service is unable
to deliver mail.
Non-Coded Drops: These are records that do not have the ZIP+4.
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Pander Drop: Takes out all names that are on the DMA Preference
File (Do Not Mail List). All mailers are encouraged to use this
list, and companies who are a member of the Direct Marketing
Association are required to use this list. There is no use mailing
to people who do not want to be mailed to.
Deceased Drops: Takes out names of those who are deceased.
Intra Dupes: Duplicate records within the same file.
FIGURE 10–2 Broker Report
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M/P Output: The net names you are left with after the merge
purge.
Broker Deductions: These are the names you get credit for from
your list broker. You don’t have to pay for names with bad
addresses, intra dupes, etc.
Broker Net: This is number of names your list broker should bill
you for on the list invoices.
The broker report should be used in conjunction with the interaction
report. The two reports will help you get the most deductions from your
list broker.
More on Data Hygiene
The Postal Service offers some great tools and files to help you ensure
you have the most up-to-date addresses. Here are a few of the files the
Postal Service has available:
National Change of Address (NCOA) File: A list of people who
have moved within the last three years. Running the NCOA list
against your mail file will help ensure that you have the correct
address for anyone on the mail file that has recently moved.
Locatable Address Conversion System (LACS): Will convert rural-
style addresses (nonstandard) to city-style addresses (standard).
This will help increase the deliverability of your mail.
Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS): Helps mailers improve the
accuracy of delivery. This software will identify and correct bad
addresses to the carrier route, five-digit zip, ZIP +4, and delivery
point codes. In addition to improving your delivery, the CASS sys-
tem will help you receive an automatic discount on your postage.
Make sure your data-processing company has access to these files
because the Postal Service does not make them available to everyone.
Getting all the postage deductions available for your mail piece
will save you thousands of dollars. You must plan in advance to make
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sure you run the address hygiene process correctly. Proper list hygiene
will lower the number of “nixie” records—incorrect or undeliverable
records.
There also are other address correction files and mailing
enhancement tools available. For example, some data-processing
companies have tools that append apartment numbers to records that
don’t have an apartment number but should. Ask your data-processing
company what options it has available to help clean up your mail file.
More on Suppression Files
Suppression files are lists of names/addresses that you do not want to
mail to. If you are trying to generate new leads, you will not want to mail
to the names you already have in your database. These names are often
referred to as your house file or customer file. You’ll need to send this
file to the data-processing company and ask them to “suppress” these
names from your mailing. Your data-processing company will probably
refer to this file as house suppression file or customer suppression file.
You also don’t want to mail to anyone who is in prison or deceased.
And it’s not just to save money. If you mail to someone who is deceased,
it could be disturbing to the family, or at the very least an annoyance.
And it can make you appear uncaring and sloppy. And prison inmates
are likely not allowed to order what you’re selling.
Now, perhaps you think you would never do that. But don’t be so
sure. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) estimates that every
year, 22 million pieces are sent to people who are deceased. And many
millions are sent to prisoners.
The fact is, you don’t always know for sure what kind of names are
on the mailing list you purchase or rent. Of course, you must always
ask your list broker or the company itself for assurance that it cleaned
the list of unwanted names. And any reputable list rental company will
try to stay on top of these issues. But people’s situations are always
changing, and a list that was compiled even three months ago may
contain names that would be better suppressed.
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And there’s always the possibility that the list rental company did
not do a recent or thorough search. To be safe you should al ways check
the file yourself. One excellent place to start is with DMA, which offers
two suppression files: a recently recorded deceased file and a state and
federal prison file.
The recently recorded deceased file (RRDF) contains data on
millions of recorded deaths over the last 12 months. It is updated
monthly and includes names from several sources, including the DMA’s
deceased do not contact (DDNC) list, which is a long-term list.
Both the RRDF and the DDNC are subscription services, and it
probably isn’t going to be worth it to you to pay the yearly fee, especially
if you’re a small company and don’t mail to that many names. In that
case, you can go through a list hygiene service, which we’ll discuss
shortly.
DMA’s state and federal prison file contains approximately 2,000
addresses of federal and state prisons and correctional facilities. You
would clean your mailing list by removing the names of any individual
whose address matches one of the ad dresses on the list. The file is
updated three times each year. Again, you don’t need to buy this list
yourself if your list hygiene service subscribes.
While you need to keep your mailing lists clean by suppressing
unwanted names, you do not have to subscribe to the necessary lists or
do the cleanup yourself. Your data-processing company should provide
a list hygiene ser vice.
If you are mailing frequently—weekly or monthly—you may want to
consider suppressing your prior mail file. When you are mailing often,
there’s a good possibility that you will mail to the same person two or
three times a year. It’s okay to do this, but you want to make sure you
don’t mail to this same person three times within a few weeks. In order
to prevent this, have your data-processing company suppress your prior
mailings.
Please note: Obviously there are times when you do want to mail to
the same person more than one time within a short period of time, but
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as a general rule for attaining new buyers/leads, you’ll want to suppress
your prior mailing.
And there may be some people on your list who have written,
called, or emailed to say “Do not send me any more mail.” You must
immediately remove their names from your list. If you send anything,
you’ll just antagonize them. If they get mad enough at you, they may
contact the Federal Trade Commission or the Better Business Bureau to
report you, and you don’t want that kind of attention. Plus, mailing to
them is a waste of money.
Have your mailing list set up so that you can quickly go in and
remove unwanted names. Develop your own “do not mail” list. That
will work for mailings from your house file, but don’t stop there. Those
same names could very well pop up on the lists of names you buy or rent
from other companies. So check all lists against your company’s own
suppression file of people who have requested not to hear from you.
Last, it’s very important that you suppress the DMA preference file.
This is a national file of people who have said, “Do Not Mail to Me.”
Sending these people mail will only make them mad and possibly get
you in trouble. The only kind of response you’ll get from them is an
angry one. Make sure to suppress this list from all mailings!
Post Merge-Purge Production
After the data hygiene has been completed and the merge purge has
been run, you can start working on the post merge-purge production—
the final touches you will put on your list. At this point, you can add in
your decoy list or seed list and assign your key codes and splits.
The decoy or seed list is the group of names and addresses you use
to track the delivery of the mailing. It’s how you will know for sure that
your mail has been delivered and isn’t sitting in trays in a warehouse
somewhere.
If you’re doing a national mailing, make sure you insert seed names
in every part of the country. If the mailing is being sent from Los
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Angeles, you’ll want to know when your sales pieces are delivered in San
Francisco, Chicago, New York, and places in between.
You probably don’t have friends in all those places to send your
mail to, but there are services available whose job is to help track your
mail for you. Two of the best are US Monitor and Track My Mail. Each
has its own way of tracking a mail campaign, and both can provide
excellent delivery information.
The last step is assigning your key codes or mailing codes and
splitting the lists into segments if you are doing any testing on different
features of your mailing. For instructions on how to do that, please look
back at Chapter 6, which covers list segmentation.
A Little Bit More about Testing Variables
There are countless variables that you can test when doing direct mail.
The simple and obvious ones that most people know about would
involve testing different kinds of sales copy, headlines, price points, and
design formats. But there are also more subtle things you can test like:
The color scheme for the sales package: whether you print in
black and white, four-color, or two-color—and if it’s two-color,
whether the second color is red or blue
The offer, whether it’s different price points, or testing a free
offer
The way the order form is presented
Bonus items, guarantees, and coupons
Whether response involves going to a website or calling an 800
number
There are literally hundreds of thousands of different variables you
can test, and every test can be important.
As we mentioned earlier, it is critical that you test only one variable
per sales package at a time. For example, let’s say you want to test two
different offers and two different postcard colors. You could not do the
test effectively in the example below:
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Yellow Postcard with Offer A
White Postcard with Offer B
There are too many variables represented in each piece to be able
to determine which one variable worked best and how they may have
interacted. If the yellow postcard worked better, you would not know if
it was the yellow part of the postcard or the offer part of the postcard
that made it work better.
Here’s how the test should be set up:
Yellow Postcard with Offer A
Yellow Postcard with Offer B
White Postcard with Offer A
White Postcard with Offer B
This example has all the areas covered. You’ll know exactly which
offer and postcard color worked best once the campaign is complete.
You must be very cautious when you test. By testing only one
variable at a time (per package) you can scientifically monitor and know
your results are valid.
As I was writing this section on testing, I was interrupted by a client
who was confused by some recent mailing results. His mailing two
months ago had outstanding results, but his mailing three weeks ago
was not performing well at all. The same sales piece was used for both,
so he expected a similar response.
I agreed that the response should be similar, but after asking a
series of questions, I found out that he had changed the way he mailed
the sales package. He segmented out different parts of the country and
mailed some pieces via first-class mail and some via bulk mail. The
mailings also didn’t go out on the same day . . . he mailed the pieces over
the course of a few weeks.
What problems did he create for himself by doing this?
He originally mailed the package first class—which in my experi-
ence always brings a higher response rate, even though it doesn’t
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always offset the extra cost. In his second mailing, he mailed a
portion of his pieces bulk. I’m certain this caused a partial drop
in response rate.
He also picked which sections of the country should get first-
class mail and which areas should get bulk mail. His most
responsive state in the past was California, where he was located.
He decided to mail all of the California names via bulk mail since
he figured the delivery time would still be fairly quick because it
was local. Basically, he took his highest responding market and
mailed to it using the least responsive method.
This client learned an important lesson the hard way: Don’t make
arbitrary changes in your mailing, and don’t mix up your variables. If
you do, you may not be able to assess the effect on your results. Make
sure to plan out each mail test so you know exactly how each element
could impact your current campaign. That way you can use your results
to guide you in future campaigns.
Working with the Postal Service
Working with the Postal Service is a key part of being a direct mailer.
You want to have a good relationship with your post office and stay
abreast of current guidelines.
The Postal Service revises and changes guidelines constantly
throughout the year. It seems there’s always a new procedure, rate,
or form being implemented. If you are going to be in the direct-mail
business, you need to establish a good relationship with a Postal Service
representative in your local area—someone you can actually talk to,
someone you can sit down with in your office or go visit at the post
office. You want to be able to show this person what you want to mail
and ask:
Is this format acceptable?
How much will the postage be?
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You would be surprised at the different kinds of things that you can
send through the mail. A knowledgeable representative can help guide
you, giving you the freedom to be super creative with your direct-mail
campaigns.
Did you know that you can mail:
coconuts
bottles
wooden postcards
trash cans
boomerangs
bank bags
metal postcards
and many other unique items
You will never know what you can and can’t mail without consulting
a good Postal Service rep.
Make sure you choose a representative who wants to be your
advocate—who wants to see you send lots of mail. I’ve come across many
postal representatives who seemed uninterested in my business. Even
though I told them I could put millions of pieces of mail through their
post office every year . . . they still did nothing to help me and improve
the status of their facility. (More mail volume would make their post
office look better and get more resources.)
That said, I must add that I believe the Postal Service has unfairly
gotten a bad rap over the years. Sometimes people complain about
delivery or about how difficult it is to work with people there. But, in
reality they do an exceptional job. Think about how rarely you don’t get
your mail or learn that something you mailed wasn’t delivered. The post
office has a very high delivery rate.
I’m very confident in the Postal Service’s ability to deliver mail. But
I’m not confident in all the USPS representatives—so make sure you
find a good one!
So get on the same team as the Postal Service and work together.
Ask your representative questions, and always, always make sure that
you’re constantly checking the guidelines. I would hate to hear about
you printing 10,000 pieces and then finding out that the format that
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you printed in is unacceptable, or the postage rate has changed and it’s
going to be twice as expensive as you originally thought.
The way to prevent costly mistakes like these is to check with your
postal representative ahead of time whenever you print something that
is going to be put in the mail.
Using a Mail-Processing Facility
Early in my career I worked for Ken Roberts, who was one of the largest
financial direct mailers in the country. We sold hundreds of thousands
of courses on commodity trading. And I mailed out millions of sales
pieces every year to sell them.
Ken didn’t start off mailing millions of pieces. He started out as a
one-man operation and loved telling stories about how at the beginning,
he’d get his kids to help him stuff his sales pieces into envelopes and slap
on the stamps. They’d work around the kitchen table, and he paid the
budding entrepreneurs a couple of bucks for helping him out.
But soon Ken’s company got too big for his kids to handle the
volume, and he engaged a professional mail facility to prepare and mail
his sales pieces. The mail facility would receive the sales pieces from the
printer and label, sort, bundle, and deliver the finished mail packages to
the post office, ready to be distributed across the nation.
If you’re past the stage where your kids can process your mailings
around the kitchen table, it’s time for you to look into hiring the
services of a mail-processing facility, too.
Probably the easiest way to find a mailing facility is to ask your
print shop to recommend one. Or you can look in your local Yellow
Pages. You’ll also often find that many printers have the capability to
process mail.
A mailing facility doesn’t have to be located close to you. It could be
in the next state, or even across the country. You can turn to the Direct
Marketing Association to help you find one. Visit its website at www.
the-dma.org, and search its vendor list.
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Even if you find a company that’s located far from you, it’s still a
good idea to establish a personal relationship. Talk to its representatives
on the phone, or even visit the operation and watch it process mail.
You want it to be organized, clean, and responsive to your needs.
Closely check and monitor this facility, and make sure it is a legitimate
company.
Your mailing facility will probably be able to take your entire job
from start to finish. You supply (or pay for) the raw materials: the
printed pieces, envelopes, order forms—whatever is needed. The mail
facility takes it from there, helping you prepare and clean your mail
list, presorting your mail, assembling the pieces, and bundling them
according to post office regulations.
Direct-Mail Facts and Figures
• According to the American Catalog Mailers
Association, up to 12.5 billion catalogs were mailed
in 2012. On average, those who receive at least a cata-
log in the mail spent 28 percent more on items than
those who did not receive a catalog.
• A recent study showed that 98 percent of consumers
retrieve mail from the mailbox the day it is delivered,
and 77 percent sort through it immediately.
• The Postal Service delivers to 152 million businesses and
households each day, six days per week. In comparison,
UPS delivers to 8 million addresses daily, while FedEx
serves even fewer.
• Advertising mail accounted for $16.4 billion in revenue
for the Postal Service in 2012.
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In some cases you will pay for your postage through the mail-processing
facility. When you send a check for postage that amounts to thousands of
dollars, make sure that postage is being processed properly and that you
are getting what you’re paying for. Always make a postage check out to the
U.S. Postmaster—so that only the post office can deposit it—and not to the
mailing facility itself. If you make it out to the mailing facility, it can cash
the check and then tell you it’s buying postage with it—but you don’t know
for sure that all that money is going for that purpose.
For all mailings, make sure you get verification from the USPS
that it received your mailing along with confirmation of the amount
of postage used. If you spent $2,528.35 on postage, get a form/receipt
from the USPS showing what was received, when the mailing entered in
the mail stream, and how much it cost. Request verification from the
USPS whenever you or your mailing facility drops off your mail.
Huge Postage Discounts That Can
Save You Thousands!
Check with your Postal Service representative whenever you are mailing
more than 500 pieces of mail at one time. You may qualify for a
presorted mail discount. This discount can be used for both first-class
and bulk mail and will vary between classes of mail.
The USPS offers discounts when you presort your mail because
it helps reduce the work on its end. By presorting your mail, you are
arranging it by ZIP code and then putting it in mail trays or mailbags.
All the USPS has to do is throw it on the right truck going to the
specific location that you’ve indicated on the tray or bag. Your local
USPS representative can help direct you to the most efficient way, using
software, to presort your mail.
If you do not presort your mail, then the USPS has to sort and bag
or tray the mail for you—which takes time and money.
So doing it yourself will provide you huge savings. Let’s say you are
mailing 10,000 letters via first-class mail. Typically, the full postage rate
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is about $0.06 per piece higher than the presorted rate. If you presort
your mail, you may end up saving $600.
Presorting your mail will not increase the time it takes for delivery.
On the contrary, in many cases it shortens the delivery time because one
step in the process has been removed.
First-Class vs. Bulk Mail: Which Class
of Mail Should I Use?
Are you better off sending your mail first class or bulk? Here are a few
things to consider.
Mail first class when . . .
- You are mailing time-sensitive material, for example, sending a birthday promotion that is going to all your clients or prospects that have a birthday within the next two weeks.
- You have an offer end date or “deadline” for responses.
- You need fast response. Do you want to measure the mailing response as soon as possible so you can get another mailing out quickly? For quick response, mail first class. Mail bulk mail when . . .
- You have time to wait for responses. You have a consistent mail- ing system in place, and it doesn’t matter if the responses come in weeks after you mail.
- You are mailing a thick or heavy sales piece. I’ve had clients who mail sales pieces that are up to 88 pages. First class will cost three times as much as bulk mail. If your mail piece is too large, then the only economical way to mail it is bulk. There is usually a huge price difference between first-class and bulk mail rates. The difference between a letter presorted first class and the bulk mail rate for the same letter can be as high as $0.20 per piece. That’s can be a huge savings! But you do sacrifice delivery time.
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Consider the following postal rates as of this writing):
10,000 pieces of mail via first-class mail
@ $0.46 per piece = $4,600
vs
10,000 pieces of mail via bulk mail @ $0.26 per piece = $2,600
To offset the higher postage cost, the pieces mailed via first class
must generate at least $2,000 more revenue than the bulk mail pieces.
If you are offering a $39.95 auto inspection, you’ll need to generate
50 more inspections from the piece that you mailed via first class.
There are many occasions when the cost of first class will easily
offset the high cost and make it worth paying more for your mailing.
This is something that must be tested and is different for every niche.
Returned mail is another major difference between first-class and
bulk mail. If a mail piece sent first class is not deliverable, it will be sent
back to you. If you use bulk mail and the piece is not deliverable, it will
be discarded. Only by mailing first class will you be able to track how
many pieces were not delivered.
Here are some helpful tips for mailing first-class vs. bulk mail.
Always mail postcards presorted first class. Even if you have time
on your side and you don’t need the response right away, it’s
always worth mailing a postcard first class. Every time I’ve tested
this, I always find that the first-class postcards will get a higher
response rate—high enough to offset the extra cost.
Whenever mailing a digest sales piece, use bulk mail. I’ve never
found it to be cost effective to mail a digest sales piece first class.
The slight increase in response does not offset the extra cost.
Send an invitation sales piece first class; you will get the highest
response rate by mailing it normal first class, not pre-sorted, with
a unique, live stamp.
I’ve never received consistent results on envelope packages,
which is a standard mail package with an outer envelope, letter,
or der form and maybe a few other components. Some packages
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do well with first class and others are more profitable to mail
bulk mail. You’ll have to test this one on your own.
Use these general guidelines as a starting point for your own
mailings. In my experience they work. But also be willing to test and
track your own results. And never assume that saving money is always
more profitable in the long run, or that spending more money always
brings a better outcome.
Making Sure Your Mail Is Delivered
If you are sending large national mailings in which you are reaching
more than one region, you will want to use a mail-tracking service. For
example, if you’re in Los Angeles and you are sending a national mail
campaign, how are you going to know when the mail is delivered? Will
you know if the mail is damaged or not? When did the mail arrive in
Dallas, Boston, Chicago, or New York?
In order for you to find out how your mail is being delivered and
what condition it’s in when it arrives, you’ll need to use a tracking
service.
There are two mail-tracking services I recommend. The first is US
Monitor. It will provide you a list of addresses throughout the United
States (or specific to any region you are mailing). You can use these
addresses as “seed” addresses. By adding these addresses into your
mailing file, US Monitor can track your mailing and report back to you
when the pieces were received at the seed address. It’ll even comment on
the condition of the piece. Or you can have it mail the seed pieces back
to you so you can evaluate their condition yourself.
US Monitor will allow you to check the delivery status for each
region you mail to. If you notice response rates seem low from some
area, you can check the US Monitor report online and find out if any
of your sales pieces have been delivered or not. For example, you may
find that the mail has not reached the Northeast. Knowing this you can
contact the post office to see what is going on.
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The other tracking service I recommend is TrackMyMail.com.
Rather than give you seed names, it actually puts a special barcode,
called a planet code, on your sales piece. This barcode will be
scanned by the USPS at each USPS location the mail passes through.
This code will help track your mail piece, and you’ll know when it’s
received by the closest post office to where the mail is delivered. If
you are mailing to a small town in Montana, TrackMyMail.com will
keep an eye on it until it reaches the city in Montana that you are
mailing to.
TrackMyMail.com will not tell you how your pieces look, but it has
great online tracking features so you can follow your mail as it’s being
delivered. This will give you peace of mind because you’ll know your
mail is moving and is being delivered.
Every Door Direct Mail—An Ideal Solution
for the Local Business
Every Door Direct Mail is a program developed by the USPS to help
more businesses benefit from direct mail. It allows you to blanket
specific neighborhoods and is therefore great for regional businesses.
For example, if you have a pizza shop and want to send an offer to
everyone within a two-mile radius of your restaurant, Every Door Direct
Mail will allow you to send out any size standard flat mail piece for an
extremely low fee—about one-third the normal rate. The mail will be
delivered to every address in that area. You don’t need a postage permit
or a list of names. And there is no annual fee. All you have to do is show
up at your local post office and drop off your mail.
So if you have a regional business and want to contact everyone
within a specific neighborhood, then Every Door Direct Mail is a great
fit for you. However, there are a few draw backs you should be aware of.
The USPS allows you to mail to everyone only on a specific carrier route.
You can’t segment out some of the names or addresses for factors like
age, income, or previous buying habits. You have to mail to everyone
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on the route, which can be a problem if your product or service has a
limited group of buyers.
If you have a specific buyer in mind, Every Door Direct Mail is
probably not your best option. But if you have a regional business
that appeals to a broad audience, such as a restaurant, tire shop, car
dealership, etc., and you want to reach every household or business in a
limited area, this is a very cost-ef fective way to meet your goals.
Well, you’re almost a mail expert now. But there’s still one gap that
needs to be filled in: the process of scheduling all the different parts of
the operation.
There are a lot of steps in putting together your direct-mail
campaign, and they have to fall into place like clockwork to get the best
results. Chapter 12 will make you an expert on scheduling the entire
production.
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