In preparing any direct mail campaign, you naturally start with both an idea and a budget. Before getting too involved in your project, be sure to check that your concept works well with your budget, both in terms of postage and post office delivery and processing time. A good suggestion is to run the size and design by your mailing house for feedback.
Automated and machineable pieces are always quickest for the post office to process and deliver. At the same time, these pieces also receive the least expensive postage, the greatest dollar savings.
What makes a direct mail piece machineable? Several items to check:
- 1) Size. Letter size mail always processes quicker and costs less in postage, regardless of whether it is being mailed first class, presorted first class or presorted standard. Non-letter size mail can cost almost twice as much in postage. Square and odd-shaped pieces are not only considered non-letter size, but are always processed manually by the post office and, therefore, more time consuming to process and more expensive in postage.
- 2) Thickness. Be sure the mail piece is at least as thick as the minimum postal standards and will withstand post office equipment processing. Conversely, make sure it is not too thick so as to require manual processing.
- 3) Location of Address. Be sure the address can be placed where you can receive automated discounts. Also make certain it is the first address that will be read by the post office machinery. Post office processing equipment reads addresses from the bottom up and from right to left. If a destination address is placed higher on a mail piece than a return address, the post office might attempt to deliver all of the mail to the one trying to send the mail. If the mail piece is non-letter size, be sure the address is positioned in the top half of the piece. If not, there are no postal discounts available; you would have to pay full first class postage on every piece.
- 4) Room for a Barcode. A barcode is just under 3″ wide and you may not print the barcode in the ½” closest to the right margin. You should also have at least ¼” clear on the left side of your barcode. A good rule of thumb is to keep a 4″ area clear from the right side of the mail panel. Having a barcode speeds delivery and can significantly lessen postage.
Remember, any good direct mail house will always be willing to look over the design of your mail piece before it is printed. This way, potential problems can be caught while they are still an easy fix.
If you have some tips that you can add to this, we welcome your comments.
Filed under direct mail, direct mail campaign by on May 19th, 2009. Comment. 
This horror story comes directly from David Hepburn, President of Helping Hands Housing Services, a non-profit organization in Phoenix, Arizona.
Attempting to save money in the current economic climate, Helping Hands decided to mail their newsletters themselves. This decision cost them 5 visits to bulk mail acceptance at the Phoenix Post Office. Each of these visits entailed a 1 to 2 hour wait for check-in.
On the first visit, they were told that they should not be mailing their newsletters as flats, they should fold them in half and mail them as letter-size. This would save them a significant amount of money in postage. True. So, they took them back and folded them, incurring yet a different problem. The bindery of the newsletters contained a staple right at the needed fold line. So, each of these staples was removed and replaced in a different position. The newsletters were then folded in half.
Thinking themselves done and not sure that the extra energies were truly worth it, Helping Hands presented the mailing for their second time. Instead of getting their mail accepted, they were told that since the newsletters were folded, now they needed to have a tab closure. Why this couldn’t have been shared the first time is a mystery. Helping Hands had no choice now; they took the newsletters back to fix this problem.
On the third visit, they were told they were in the wrong size trays. The pieces needed to be in EMM trays. When David asked where the trays were, he was told he could just fumble around the loading dock for them.
On the next presentation, David was told that he violated his non-profit status by having an “ad” thanking a major contributor for a very sizable donation. David did not see this as an ad, just a thank you. The postal clerk regarded it differently and gave David 2 options – 1) remove the thank you sheet and mail at non-profit rates or 2) mail the way they are at for-profit rates. David backed away to consider this.
On the fifth presentation, David decided to just get the mail out at the for-profit rates only to hear that he didn’t have his trays strapped. At this point, David just glared at the clerk and told him the history of this 350 piece mailing. The clerk took pity and said he’d let it go this time.
David has sworn to use a mailing house for all future direct mail!
Share your horror story with mailing and the post office. Make a comment here.
Filed under bulk mail, direct mail horror stories by on May 6th, 2009. Comment.
The world is your oyster! Do not limit yourself unless you must.
One of the critical components in any direct mail campaign is the mailing list. Not “who do I want to mail to?” but “who do I want to become my next customer?” “Who can benefit most from my offer?”
The more you can define your best existing customers, the clearer you can be about the demographics to use in purchasing a mailing list of prospects. Always build the universe without constraints. Only build those in as you must. The “must” being determined by the cost and availability of the selection criteria.
Define the factors and refine your ideal model. If it’s residential: geography, age, gender, marital status, presence of children, household income, home value, age of home, religious affiliation, lifestyle interest, etc. If it’s business: geography, business category, sales volume, employee size, number of years in business, single vs. multiple locations, franchises vs. independent ownerships, etc.
As you select these direct mail criteria, remind yourself that you are not trying to reach everyone. Of course everyone can use your service or product. That’s not it. Where can you have the greatest chance of the highest positive response? Go after that. You may pay more for your mailing list, but your increased positive response should more than make up for any additional cost. Further, you may find that you can cut down the size of your mailing this way – saving far more than the additional cost of the mailing list in printing and postage dollars.
Filed under direct mail campaign, targeting your market by on Apr 21st, 2009. Comment.
When it comes to direct marketing – especially to prospects – there’s no mail like the printed mail. Email does not bring the same response as receiving a piece in the mail box.
There are two major reasons for this. First, people are afraid to open mail from an email address they don’t know. Fear they could get a virus. Fear they could have their computer hacked and sensitive information could be acquired. Fear they could receive a cookie which tracks their internet activity. In today’s electronic age, it is very easy for unwanted problems to befall computers just by opening unknown emails. Is it really worth the potential risk?
Second, most people like to receive information about a new product or service via paper. From the prospect’s point of view, they do not want to waste either their time or supplies (ink and paper) by printing the information themselves. Seldom do you want to read the information on the computer screen. You generally want to take it elsewhere and read it leisurely with less eye strain.
From the direct marketer’s perspective, you get an added bonus when you use direct mail instead of email. Your recipient receives a mail piece with your desired design and layout, type selection and sizing and maybe color that they might not see if they were to print the piece on their own computer. Remember, for someone new to want your product or service you have to make your piece attractive to them, approaching your pitch from what the product or service can do for them. If you make the prospect do the first work by printing the piece, you’ve lost an edge you can never get back.
Filed under Arizona mail services, direct mail, printed mail by on Apr 17th, 2009. Comment.
If you are planning a direct mail campaign and you put the job out for quotes to a mailing house, do not look only at mail handling costs and believe that printing is printing and postage is postage. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. The amount of money you spend for a direct mail campaign should be the bottom line that it costs you – printing, mail handling and postage, balancing your desired delivery times.
A mailing list should be cleaned and refined before the print order is given. Very often, a mailing list could be reduced 10% or even more after the list is cleaned for move updates, the removal of duplicates and bad addresses and, if appropriate, the removal of moves out-of-area. Why waste money on excess printing and mail handling? Be sure that the expert you hire to do your mailing is proficient at this and will work with you to provide your list clean-up in a timely manner prior to placing your print order.
Similarly, the class of mail should be examined based on balancing estimated delivery time and postage cost. It could be that you are preparing a very time sensitive mailing where 40% is nationwide and 60% is local. You have asked mailers to quote the job for presorted first class mail. A good mailing house will direct you to consider mailing the nationwide pieces presorted first class and the balance presorted standard, maximizing postage savings and delivery time. You may not have thought of that – mailings is not your business, why should you?
And, finally, postage is not always postage. The more sortation you can do on a mailing decreases the amount of processing the post office needs to do and lessens postage. Where a mailing house takes the mail to be processed can also lessen postage. Again, this is not your business to know, but don’t you have the right to expect your hired expert to direct you.
Look at all these factors before you compare the total cost, not a single one.
Filed under direct mail campaign, direct mail costs by on Apr 13th, 2009. 1 Comment.
The question is often asked whether it is better to use a printer to do both the mailing and printing of a direct mail campaign, or to use independent places. The answer lies with the motivation of each.
A printer makes their money based on the quantity of pieces they print and what they look like. Therefore, the printer’s motivation is not necessarily in the customer’s overall best interests.
The mail piece’s design should be maximized to produce the greatest results and need not be the most extravagant. It should balance the desired image. This may be counter-productive to the printer’s bottom line.
Additionally, the mailing list should be cleaned and honed to produce the greatest results and need not be the greatest number, just the most targeted number – cleansed for move updates, the removal of duplicates, and, if appropriate, the removal of moves out-of-the-area. This, too, may be counter-productive to the printer’s bottom line.
Lastly, each company should do what they do best. The printer should print. The mailing house should direct on the mailing options, the postage costs, the delivery considerations, the cleansing and/or selection of the mailing list, and the processing of the mailing.
Filed under direct mail campaign, mail services, printing services by on Apr 10th, 2009. Comment.
We would like to welcome you to our new site that deals with everything in mail marketing. How often do you wonder about how you can improve your profits just with some little “inside” information on your side? We have many years of experience in the direct mail service field and now want to share with you, the ins and outs of doing bulk or custom mail for your business.
We are a division of Business Helpers out of Scottsdale Arizona. Please stay tuned for more details on our business and more importantly, how we can help you maximize profits in your mailing campaign.
Filed under Arizona mail services, direct mail, mail services by on Apr 2nd, 2009. Comment.