May 2026

Capturing attention and creating meaningful customer connections requires more than a single touchpoint. Successful marketing campaigns combine direct mail with digital outreach to deliver timely, coordinated messaging that drives engagement. With USPS® Informed Visibility® (IV®), businesses gain valuable delivery insights that help align campaigns for greater impact and stronger results.

This free service lets you know when USPS has accepted your mail, its expected delivery date, and where it is throughout the mailing journey. With this information, businesses can better coordinate email, text, social media, and customer outreach efforts to align with mail delivery timing.

Knowing when your mail is expected to arrive allows you to engage recipients at the right moment. Whether you are launching follow-up emails, scheduling social campaigns, or preparing your team for increased response activity, IV helps ensure your messaging is timely, relevant, and effective.

How Informed Visibility Strengthens Your Campaign

Optimize Campaign Strategy

Tracking your mail as it moves through the USPS network gives you greater control over campaign timing. Knowing when pieces are sorted, in transit, and delivered allows you to synchronize every element of your omni-channel strategy for maximum effectiveness.

Connect with Customers More Effectively

Well-timed communication across multiple channels increases the likelihood of capturing attention and driving engagement. By aligning direct mail with digital touchpoints, you can create a stronger customer experience and make a lasting impression.

Do More with Your Budget

The IV feature helps businesses maximize campaign performance without adding costs. Strategic timing and improved coordination allow you to get more value from your marketing investment while improving operational efficiency.

How Informed Visibility Works

1. Pre-mailing

Before your campaign enters the mail stream, each piece is assigned an Intelligent Mail® barcode (IMb®). This barcode contains important tracking information, including the Service Type Identifier (STID), Mailer Identifier (MID), and delivery point ZIP Code™ data. These details provide the foundation for tracking mail throughout its journey.

2. Mailing

As your mail moves through the USPS network, scans provide real-time visibility into its progress. Reporting tools allow you to filter and review the information most relevant to your campaign, with updates delivered at the frequency you choose.

3. Delivery

Once your mail reaches recipients, IV notifies you that delivery has occurred. This insight helps businesses launch complementary digital messaging and customer engagement efforts at the ideal time.

4. Post-Delivery Insights

Campaign data gathered through IV can also strengthen future marketing efforts. By analyzing delivery timing, engagement trends, and regional activity, businesses can make smarter decisions and improve future campaign performance.

Closing the loop on mail acceptance benefits everyone involved in the process. Mail service providers, like DMD, can verify campaign progress, strengthen quality control, and demonstrate accountability to customers. Mail owners gain added confidence that campaigns are moving as expected, along with valuable tools for researching and resolving irregularities if they occur.

Informed Visibility is far more than a mail tracking tool. It is a strategic resource that helps businesses improve timing, strengthen customer engagement, and maximize the effectiveness of direct mail campaigns.

Paper plays an important role in everyday life and remains one of the most renewable and recyclable materials available today. From sustainably managed forests to strong recycling systems and responsible manufacturing practices, the paper industry continues to evolve in ways that support both businesses and environmental goals. Understanding the facts behind paper production helps paint a clearer picture of its place in a sustainable, circular economy.

Sustainable Forests Are Not Disappearing

One of the most common misconceptions is that paper production is destroying forests in the United States. In reality, U.S. forests are a renewable resource that continues to be replenished through sustainable forestry practices and natural regeneration.

Sustainable forest management focuses on maintaining healthy ecosystems while balancing environmental, social, and economic needs. This includes protecting wildlife habitats, improving soil and water quality, and reducing risks from wildfire, pests, and disease.

Strong demand for responsibly sourced paper products also gives landowners a financial incentive to preserve forestland rather than convert it to commercial or residential development. In fact, U.S. forestland has remained relatively stable for decades, even as the population has grown significantly.

Understanding Deforestation

Another important distinction is the difference between harvesting trees and deforestation. Harvesting trees for paper production helps maintain and grow available forest land.  Sustainable harvesting of trees to make products that benefit society is not considered deforestation because the trees will grow back.

Deforestation refers to converting forestland into non-forest uses such as urban development, agriculture, mining, or infrastructure. Sustainable forestry includes replanting and regeneration practices designed to ensure forests continue to thrive for future generations.

Forests Help Store Carbon

Healthy forests play an important role in helping absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere, while sustainable forestry practices such as replanting, thinning, and responsible land management help maintain long-term forest health.

The ongoing cycle of growing, harvesting, and regenerating forests also supports carbon storage in both new forest growth and wood-based products.

In addition, the paper industry continues to reduce its environmental impact through the use of biomass energy, which is created from renewable organic materials such as bark, wood residues, and other plant-based byproducts generated during manufacturing. By efficiently reusing these materials to produce heat, steam, and electricity, paper mills reduce waste and lower greenhouse gas emissions, thus supporting more sustainable manufacturing practices.

Recycling Makes Paper a Circular Product

Paper remains one of the most recycled materials in the United States, outperforming materials such as plastic, glass, and metal. Recycled paper is used to create new products businesses rely on every day, including packaging, cartons, and shipping materials.

Recycling paper helps reduce landfill waste and lowers greenhouse gas emissions. However, recycled fiber alone is not enough to sustain the paper manufacturing process long term. Fresh fiber from sustainably managed forests is also necessary to maintain product strength, quality, and performance.

Together, recycled and renewable fibers help create a balanced, circular system that keeps paper products in use while supporting responsible forest management.

Why This Matters for Businesses

For businesses investing in direct mail and printed communications, sustainability matters to both companies and consumers. Today’s paper industry continues to evolve through responsible forestry, efficient manufacturing, and strong recycling programs that support environmental goals while delivering products people depend on every day.

Print and direct mail remain powerful communication tools, and when paired with responsibly sourced paper and thoughtful production practices, they are a part of the sustainable marketing strategy.