Industry-focused marketing insights can help craft more impactful and actionable financial campaigns. By analyzing proprietary data, you can discover how brands are achieving success with direct mail.

Today’s marketers have a wide array of options, from cutting-edge innovations to advanced tracking capabilities, giving businesses numerous ways to capture attention and stand out.

Direct mail, in particular, is a powerful element of omnichannel campaigns. However, with so many tools and strategies available, finding the right approach can be challenging.

To understand how businesses across various industries are leveraging direct mail, the United States Postal Service partnered with Summit Research* to conduct a proprietary study.

According to the study, 82% of financial companies find direct mail to be an effective channel. Among all industries surveyed, financial businesses rated direct mail as equally or more effective than other channels, with only social media ranking slightly higher, by just 1%. Additionally, financial companies reported having the highest level of expertise with direct mail, using it primarily for growth and loyalty-building.

Their preferred method? Customization. The study revealed that 62% of financial companies personalize offers, while 59% personalize greetings or customer names.

At Direct Mail Depot, our Digital Variable Color Printing allows for highly personalized mail pieces in a single mail stream. Using advanced software, this technology automatically selects and prints unique images, graphics, and text for each recipient, based on information from your database. This customization can be tailored to various factors, including demographics, location, income, occupation, purchase history, and household size.

DMD Success Tip: Mail customization can make customers feel valued and understood while building trust—key for customers making important financial decisions.

Key Takeaway:

In a constantly evolving marketing landscape, staying up-to-date can be challenging. Smart marketers rely on data to guide their decisions, ensuring their strategies align with their sector, objectives, and unique needs.

Direct Mail Depot is your trusted partner in achieving success. Reach out to us today at in**@di*************.com.

FOOTNOTE

“Direct Mail Industry Research: Insights Report,” Summit Research for McCann Worldgroup, May 2023.

Every company is part of a broader supply chain that includes third-party providers of products and services. Main suppliers like Direct Mail Depot, referred to as Tier 1, work directly with the company. Other suppliers, DMD included, are categorized as Tier 2. While Tier 1 suppliers are often the focus of supplier diversity efforts, the potential impact grows when Tier 2 suppliers are included.

Tier 1 spend refers to the direct procurement dollars spent by a company with certified diverse suppliers.

Tier 2 spend refers to the procurement dollars spent by a company’s suppliers with certified diverse suppliers. In this case, Tier 2 suppliers are essentially your suppliers’ suppliers.

Working with Tier 2 suppliers enables your company to extend its diversity spend while maintaining relationships with existing suppliers or accessing those with unique capabilities. Tier 2 diversity spend is a critical part of the future of supplier diversity.

There are many benefits to utilizing Direct Mail Depot for your Diversity Spend:

• You can access a wider pool of suppliers with unique perspectives and capabilities. This can lead to improved product quality, and enhanced customer satisfaction.
• This brings diverse perspectives that fuel innovation, sparking creative solutions to help your business stay ahead of the competition.
• When you Invest in diverse businesses, this empowers underrepresented groups, drives economic growth and creates a more inclusive and sustainable economy.
• By aligning with diverse suppliers, this ensures that your business reflects the broad spectrum of your customers and communities, strengthening trust, loyalty, and gaining deeper connections.

As a certified National Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) and a woman-owned, managed, and controlled business, Direct Mail Depot is committed to supporting and fostering the growth of minority enterprises.

 Reach out to DMD to be your partner for Tier 1 or Tier 2 Diversity spend.  

For business owners, effective and affordable marketing is crucial. But with so many options, tight budgets, and little time, figuring out what works can be daunting.

While many are drawn to digital tactics, these methods can be confusing, and what works for one business may not suit another. It’s worth revisiting core marketing strategies, especially direct mail, which can cut through the crowded digital space and address today’s business challenges.

Direct mail offers business owners a simple, cost-effective way to target their audience, provide value, and drive action.

Counter Digital Overload 

In an era where consumers are inundated with emails, a tangible mail piece stands out. Direct mail provides a refreshing break from the digital clutter, giving your business a better chance to be noticed.

Reach New Customers 

Proven and reliable, direct mail is now more relevant than ever. Unlike fleeting digital ads, direct mail often gets more attention and is shared with friends and family, keeping your brand in the spotlight longer.

Adding direct mail to your marketing toolkit can help you attract new customers and strengthen relationships with existing ones. Studies show that direct mail stays in the home for about four weeks and builds trust with consumers. Integrating it into a broader campaign also creates opportunities for follow-up actions, like visiting a website or engaging on social media.

Tip: Consider an Informed Delivery® campaign, which blends physical mail with digital elements to boost conversions. Direct Mail Depot can help you with that.

Why Choose Direct Mail? 

Direct mail is customizable and engaging, without breaking the bank. Plus, Direct Mail Depot (DMD) is here to help you navigate the process—from design and targeting to printing and mailing.

Leverage Digital Innovations 

Today’s direct mail is as trackable as it is effective, thanks to dynamic add-ons.  Click here to read more on this. Advanced features allow you to see the impact of your campaign in real-time.

Targeted and Personal 

Direct mail can be tailored based on location, demographics, and behaviors. With the right data, you can create personalized messages that truly resonate with your audience.

Creative and Impactful 

To make your direct mail stand out, think beyond the basics. Simple elements like scratch-offs, puzzles, or branded items can increase engagement and stay within your budget.

The Bottom Line 

Direct mail remains a powerful tool for businesses, seamlessly integrating with digital efforts to drive results. It’s an appealing, automated solution that works across generations.

For all businesses, direct mail offers an effective, customizable strategy to grow and maintain customer relationships.

Direct Mail Depot is your trusted partner in achieving success. Reach out to us today at in**@di*************.com.

Why Direct Mail Remains Effective

1. Greater Memorability

Direct mail materials offer a tangible experience that digital ads can’t replicate, making them more memorable and enhancing brand recall for recipients.

2. Precise Audience Targeting

Direct mail enables businesses to target specific demographics, interests, or geographic regions, ensuring that their messages reach the most relevant audience segments.

3. Personalized Messaging

Direct mail allows for highly customized communication, where businesses can address recipients by name and tailor content to individual preferences and behaviors through precise targeted distribution strategies.

4. Higher Response Rates

Direct mail consistently outperforms digital marketing channels in terms of response rates, leading to increased customer engagement, lead generation, and conversions.

5. Physical Brand Representation

Printed mail materials provide a physical embodiment of your brand, helping to establish trust, credibility, and emotional connections with recipients.

6. Trackable Results

Direct mail campaigns can be easily monitored and measured using unique identifiers or response mechanisms, allowing businesses to evaluate the success of their marketing efforts and make necessary adjustments.

7. Creative Versatility

Direct mail offers creative freedom, enabling businesses to design visually appealing and innovative mailers that capture attention and stand out in the mailbox.

8. Extended Shelf Life

Unlike digital ads that quickly fade away, direct mail materials have a longer shelf life, remaining visible to recipients for an extended period and increasing the chances of a response over time.

9. Integration with Digital Marketing

Direct mail can work in tandem with digital marketing strategies, offering an integrated approach that enhances brand visibility and engagement across multiple channels, both online and offline.

10. Cost-Efficiency

Contrary to popular belief, direct mail can be a cost-effective marketing option, providing a competitive ROI and value for businesses of all sizes, particularly when combined with targeted and personalized messaging.

By taking advantage of these benefits, businesses can effectively use direct mail marketing to reach and engage their target audience, driving measurable outcomes and achieving their marketing goals.

Direct Mail Depot is your trusted partner for all your direct mail needs. Contact us today at in**@di*************.com to discover how we can assist you.

As an unpredictable market continues to impact brands around the world, companies must adapt while preparing for the future. See how direct mail marketing can create better stability and higher ROI.

Today’s businesses are facing an unpredictable market. With a shifting economy, tighter regulations and changing customer preferences all affecting the industry in recent years, businesses are looking for ways to adapt. Focusing more on direct mail marketing can help maintain a consistent return on investment (ROI) during times of uncertainty.

In fact, direct mail campaigns incorporating standard letter-sized mail had a 112% average ROI when sent out to prospects—higher than SMS texts (at 102%), email (at 93%) and paid search (at 88%).

There’s no way to fully avoid the inherent uncertainty of the modern-day marketing and supply chain spheres. But with careful planning and innovative use of direct mail, companies can mitigate risks, ease costs, and create successful campaigns that not only maintain but improve ROI.

5 Tips for Long-Term Success with Direct Mail Marketing

The cost of digital marketing is on the rise, with businesses facing higher prices and increased pressure to convert.

But direct mail can still provide a reliable return on investment while offering customers a uniquely tangible experience—a welcome novelty in the age of digital. Following a few best practices can help ensure success:

1. Plan Ahead

Rising costs, inventory scarcity and various supply chain issues can all contribute to delays in campaign launches. To help ensure your direct mail marketing efforts are released on schedule, it’s important to plan ahead. Let vendors know well in advance what products you require, and keep a detailed schedule of upcoming campaigns and major milestones. If you’re looking to save on paper costs, explore options for lighter-weight materials that still meet USPS requirements

Pro Tip: Maintain close communication with colleagues and partners to keep things moving, and be sure to build delays into your schedule to create more realistic timelines.

2. Reduce Waste

Increasing efficiencies can help ensure your campaigns reach the right people and your mailpieces don’t go to waste. Even simple steps like regularly updating your mailing lists can go a long way. With approximately one in six families moving every year, ensuring address accuracy is imperative. You can double-check ZIP Code™ information using the USPS^® ZIP Code lookup tool.

Pro Tip: No matter how much you prepare, some undeliverable mail is inevitable. The free USPS BlueEarth^® Secure Destruction service can intercept any of your brand’s undeliverable.

First-Class^® mailpieces, then securely destroy them and recycle them—saving you both time and money.

3. Automate Campaigns

Automated marketing can streamline campaigns, helping you connect with the customers most likely to convert while keeping your marketing costs down. Retargeted direct mail, for example, allows you to send out mail automatically after a customer takes a specific action on one of your digital channels. Many brands use this to follow up with customers who left items in their online shopping carts, helping to move them closer toward a purchase.

Pro Tip: Make it easy for customers to act on your mail pieces using omnichannel innovations. If you’re sending postcards reminding customers of the items in their abandoned online carts, for instance, a smartphone-scannable QR Code can lead them right back to those specific products.

4. Dig Into the Data

Take advantage of the data at your disposal to create highly targeted, cost-efficient marketing. By analyzing customer data, you can better determine which demographics are responding to your campaigns, then use this information to shape future marketing, make the most of your budget and increase the chances of customers making a purchase.

Pro Tip: Gather data from all channels—social media, websites, emails, direct mail, reviews, and more. How do customers discuss your brand on social? What questions come up most often? Which promotions have been successful? All of this information can help you create mail that grabs customers’ attention and spurs engagement.

5. Remain Flexible

During times of disruption, flexibility is key. Ordering inventory and campaign materials weeks ahead of time and mapping out key campaigns in advance can help avoid major issues. But you may still need to be ready with other options if things don’t go according to plan. Always be prepared to work with your carriers and vendors to find an alternative that makes sense for your needs.

Pro Tip: When adapting campaigns to a shifting environment, always adjust according to customer needs. Remaining rigid in the type of campaign or product you’re offering can hold you back, but defining your brand based on customer needs allows you to adapt quickly, remain relevant and maintain loyalty—all while improving ROI.

Key Takeaway

With the supply chain in a constant state of flux and marketing costs on the rise, businesses are making changes—big and small—to create more efficient, streamlined campaigns.

Even amid uncertainty and disruption, direct mail remains a reliable, cost-effective marketing medium—allowing marketers to create integrated, easily trackable omnichannel campaigns that encourage customers to act. Taking a few simple steps to prepare for the future, from automating marketing to reducing waste, can help protect your bottom line—for today, tomorrow and beyond.

Direct Mail Depot is your trusted partner in achieving success. Reach out to us today at in**@di*************.com.

Footnotes

[1]According to the Association of National Advertisers’ “Response Rate Report 2021: Performance and Cost Metrics.”

[2]Brad Rosenfeld, “How Marketers Are Fighting Rising Ad Costs,” Forbes, Nov. 14, 2022.

[3]“Checking the Accuracy of Your Address List,” Postal Explorer, USPS.

[4]QR Code is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.

Reprinted with permission of USPSDelivers.com, an expert resource for future-thinking shippers and marketers.

With tighter marketing budgets, the ability to identify a quantifiable return is more important than ever. See effective ways to track and measure the performance of a direct mail campaign.

For today’s marketers, analytics is the name of the game. The shift to digital has provided a wealth of trackable insights, with many campaign decisions relying on performance data to prove each channel’s worth. Unsure of how to measure its ROI, marketers often leave direct mail off the table.

But is that leaving a valuable opportunity behind?

Seasoned marketers know the unique role direct mail can play in the  customer journey — it has long had the power to precisely target and engage consumers. In discussions with key decision-makers at several retail, B2B and agency organizations, however, we hear that many struggle to support mail’s place in their modern-day campaigns.

Direct mail attribution is possible. The key is tying direct mail into a larger digital campaign using the right technical innovations. Read on to see how advertisers are measuring the ability of direct mail to amplify their message and drive action.

How to Track Direct Mail ROI

See how various methods of attribution can help direct mail work with digital to provide measurable results.

Retargeted Direct Mail

Retargeted direct mail is a valuable component of an omnichannel campaign. In synch with your digital channels, this tactic automates much of the direct mail journey, including sending direct mail to your online visitors after they’ve reached specific triggers.

This allows for highly personalized messaging, as well as the gathering of additional data and insights into their behaviors. For example, if a customer visits your website but doesn’t purchase, you can send out an incentive—tying their IP address to a home address—and track whether it converts.

Similarly, you can automatically retarget those who abandon carts. This happens via email all the time, but retargeting emails can get lost in the mix when consumers receive nearly 90 email solicitations a day, compared to just 2.5 pieces of mail.^[5]

QR Codes

More popular than ever, the small square barcode known as a QR Code®

is the perfect merge of offline and on. With a unique scannable code added directly to a mail piece, your audience can easily take the next step toward a sale, whether that’s visiting your site, finding your store, redeeming a coupon or other actions. And you’ll know exactly what and when they do it.

What can customers do with a QR Code?

• Go directly to an order page to purchase instantly
• Watch a video to learn more about your product
• Download an exclusive coupon
• Pinpoint your location on their map application
• Add an event directly to their calendar
• Easily contact your sales team or customer service
• QR Codes are great for an immediate action, and they encourage it by being so simple. Consumers don’t have to go to a computer and enter a URL. They’re engaged right on their phone, which means you are able to gather a wealth of data that can be used to nurture the relationship—and to plan future promotions.

Match-Backs

Match-back reporting is the process of matching untracked sales with your mailing list. By matching conversions during a promotion with the customers on your list, you’ll be able to attribute at least some level of credit to direct mail for the sale.

It’s important to utilize a match-back to determine campaign performance more fully. Not all users will take advantage of a QR Code or other specific URL, but they will be driven to act, and therefore direct mail merits attribution for the sale. Matching your list with a sale also gives you information about the list, offer and creative, which enables you to optimize going forward.

Two things to note: A match-back process is not instant, so you will have to be patient with results. Mail’s lifespan in a home is longer than an email’s, for example—it may sit or be shared with others in the household before being used—so a period of match-back analysis could be from 30 to 90 days.

Second, you may want to consider a holdout strategy to further validate your match-back findings. This involves intentionally withholding your mailing from a determined group to serve as a control to compare with the sales results from the mailed group. While not totally foolproof in a multichannel campaign, this can help attribute lift to direct mail.

Promo Codes and Coupons

Consumers expect and look for special offers with direct mail, with 77% saying a discount is the most effective element of a marketing mail piece.

Coupons can introduce new customers to your business and encourage existing customers to come back to your store. Used strategically, coupons can even help drive sales of a profitable item or service.

Coupons can also help you track your campaign’s performance, particularly when your mail piece contains a unique offer code. Any time the promo code is used for a sale, whether online, over the phone or in person, it will be attributed to your direct mail. In some cases, sending out a promo code will also help you build your online database by requiring an email address in order for it to be used.

Vanity URLs

Similar to how QR Codes function, a vanity URL in your direct mail makes it easier to drive users online to complete a specific action. Meant to be short and memorable, these unique web addresses not only help the shift to your digital channel happen quickly, they also track the encounter to measure specific tactics.

Let’s say you are running TV, out-of-home and direct mail ads. If each promotion features a different URL, you’ll be able to see how each converted, just as you would with online ads. For the best memorability and metrics, give each tactic a clever domain name that works with your campaign theme and drives to a landing page.

Vanity URL Do’s

• Short
• Memorable
• Relevant
• For Example: GimmeFreeHotdogs.com

Vanity URL Don’ts

• Complicated abbreviations
• Long names with backslashes
• No specific call to action (for awareness campaigns, stick to your domain name)
• You can also go further to create personalized URLs (PURLs), which are unique to each customer and lead to custom landing page, a powerful way to bridge the gap to digital.

Post-Purchase Surveys

The value of sending your customers a post-purchase survey is twofold: First, you can ask how they came to your business, and therefore attribute the sale to that tactic. Second, following up can help maintain customer satisfaction.

41% of sales are generated by repeat purchases from satisfied customers.

A post-purchase survey can be as simple as a question on the checkout confirmation page, or it can be sent out later as a check-in to see how they feel about your product and experience. Ideally you can pinpoint how they heard about you and gain insights that can be used to nurture the relationship going forward.

Business Reply Cards

The familiar prepaid business reply card is a popular method for gathering responses to direct mail. These postcards are attached to or included in your mailer and are easy for prospects to fill out and send back.

With a few simple questions, they enable you to gather valuable information about your audience that you might not receive with other response methods. You might even offer an incentive for returning the card, which can boost replies. Just remember, there are format guidelines, and you will need a BRM permit to receive Business Reply Mail.

Key Takeaway

Direct mail is a proven performer. However, with an array of internal teams and media tactics vying for a piece of the budget, it’s no wonder the aspect of a clear and real-time ROI often wins.

Today’s smarter direct mail can help justify the spend. With a comprehensive attribution model, merging direct mail with digital, you can not only engage with consumers across numerous channels, but can also have the power to measure the impact more definitively.

Direct Mail Depot is your trusted partner for all your direct mail needs. Contact us today at in**@di*************.com to discover how we can assist you.

Footnotes

[1]USPS, Direct Mail Decision Making Report, Jan. 6, 2022.

[2]Ibid.

[3]Ibid.

[4]Ibid.

[5]Michael Peach, “Mastering Direct Mail Attribution,” Lob, March 23, 2020.

[6]QR Code is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.

[7]USPSDelivers.com Research — Full Report, Qualitative and Quantitative Results, Summit Research, February 2021.

[8]Ash Maynor, “Why merchants should have a post-purchase survey,” MESA, March 15, 2022.

Reprinted with permission of USPSDelivers.com, an expert resource for future-thinking shippers and marketers.

For years, compliance with data privacy regulations involved completing an annual audit and checking some boxes to satisfy industry requirements. You’ve probably heard of major regulations and standards, including:

• The Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act (HIPAA) for health information.
• The Gramm Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) for banks and financial institutions.
• The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) for companies that handle credit card information.

Today, data privacy is a day-to-day responsibility of not only the IT and compliance folks, but all employees, business partners, and vendors. Regulations enacted in recent years, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act, and the New York SHIELD Act, have broadened the scope of data privacy requirements and introduced new consumer rights with regards to controlling and accessing their data.

Given increasingly stringent data privacy rules, severe penalties for noncompliance, and a number of high-profile data breaches, it’s no surprise that 44 percent of CEOs rank data privacy among the three policies that are most impactful of their business, according to a 2020 PwC survey. Nearly seven in 10 are “very actively” looking to shape data privacy policy.

What Is the HITRUST-CSF Certification?

The Health Information Trust Alliance Common Security Framework (HITRUST CSF) is a framework of controls and standards created to help organizations satisfy security, data privacy, and compliance requirements. HITRUST CSF covers a wide range of security functions, from access controls and disaster recovery to endpoint protection and third-party assurance.

Key systems and infrastructure within Direct Mail Depot’s operation have earned the HITRUST CSF certification, which means we have to prove to the HITRUST Alliance that our security systems and policies meet their strict standards. HITRUST CSF certification means exactly what the name implies – you have a high level of trust that your data is being protected.

HITRUST CSF was originally developed in collaboration with leaders from the healthcare sector. Early adopters were mostly healthcare organizations, and HITRUST CSF is the most widely adopted security framework in the U.S. healthcare industry. As a result, many people mistakenly assume HITRUST CSF is just another fancy word for HIPAA.

In reality, HIPAA is a law. There is no certification process. HITRUST CSF requires companies to go through a rigorous process and implement a wide range of controls and policies to become certified. HITRUST CSF also incorporates the requirements of PCI, GLBA, ISO, NIST, and other regulations and standards to ensure data privacy is maintained by a wide variety of organizations.

This is especially important when you’re trusting a third party with your customer data.

Data Privacy Must Be Engrained in the Company Culture

At Direct Mail Depot, security is a priority at every level of the company. Every employee must go through security awareness training. Instead of simply being handed a security manual, for example, the team goes through weekly security training, including real-world phishing tests that show employees how cyber criminals are trying to fool them.

The HITRUST CSF certification has required us to implement strict controls for the storage and transfer of data, both internally and externally. There are nearly two dozen categories of IT security policies and procedures that we maintain, such as mobile and wireless security, configuration and vulnerability management, and audit logging and monitoring.

Security also extends from the IT environment to the physical environment. The production plant has strict access controls, visitors need to be escorted, and nobody is all allowed to take photos or videos in that space, which prevents data from being accidentally captured.

Data privacy rules are growing in number and complexity for all companies, not just those in heavily regulated industries. It’s important to partner with companies that not only have the right technology and controls in place, but also have security baked into the company culture.

Do you have questions about how Direct Mail Depot protects the privacy of your customer data? Contact us to schedule a consultation.

If you could send advertising to potential customers with the expectation that more than two-thirds of them will look at it, would you do it?

This is just the beginning of the compelling business case for making Informed Delivery part of your direct mail marketing strategy.

What Is Informed Delivery?

Informed Delivery is a free service offered by the USPS that allows residential consumers to see what’s coming to their physical mailbox and manage the delivery of packages. Each day, people who sign up for this service receive an email with scanned images of incoming mail. These images can also be viewed through an online dashboard or mobile app.

For example, if someone is waiting for an important document or bill, or they’re worried about a valuable package being stolen, Informed Delivery will tell them when to expect it so they can take action.

Informed Delivery Users Love the Service

According to a USPS Informed Delivery User Survey from January 2020, 93 percent of users are satisfied or very satisfied with Informed Delivery. 94 percent would recommend the service, up from 77 percent in 2019.

Data provided by the USPS in February shows a six-month average email open rate of 69 percent. How high is that open rate? Well, the average open rate for all types of marketing emails in 2020 was just 18 percent.

Why is the open rate so high? 73 percent of Informed Delivery users check their physical mailbox every day or almost every day. 87 percent said they’re almost always the primary household member who retrieves mail.

Informed Delivery users aren’t just looking forward to checking the mailbox and going through their mail, they want to know what they’re getting before it arrives. Informed Delivery builds on that anticipation.

Direct Mail Marketing Opportunities with Informed Delivery

Informed Delivery allows businesses to capitalize on high user engagement and satisfaction by creating an additional touchpoint for their mail and integrating digital and direct mail into omni-channel marketing campaigns. This translates to more impressions, more interactions, greater awareness and recall, and higher response rates.

Direct mail marketers can use Informed Delivery to get a color or black-and-white digital image of their mailing in front of the customer before they grab the physical copy from their mailbox. They can also include a call-to-action in the email to drive recipients to their website and other digital content.

According to the USPS, the average click-through rate for interactive campaigns with Informed Delivery is 7-8 percent. This dwarfs the click-through rate of all marketing emails in all industries, which averaged just 2.6 percent in 2020.

Informed Delivery provides businesses with valuable pre- and post-campaign data, including:

• Density and Email Statistics: The number and percentage of users who choose to receive Informed Delivery emails.
• Email Open Rates: The number and percentage of emails opened for each campaign.
• Click-Through Rates: The number and percentage of users who click the image to access digital content as part of an interactive campaign.

The numbers speak for themselves. To get better results from direct mail marketing and integrate online and offline campaigns, incorporate Informed Delivery into your strategy.

Have questions about using Informed Delivery to enhance your direct mail marketing? Contact Direct Mail Depot today to schedule a consultation and discuss your options.

Traditional direct mail testing commonly involves an A and a B version.  You would print one or two static Forms, put it on a laser or inkjet printer, and personalize the piece using black toner.   This is the method used for the majority of direct mail campaigns today.

Any changes in the offer or text were accomplished using black print alone. If you wished to have an entirely new color mailer, you’d need to change the plates on the printing press, which means more proofs and setups, more print versions to manage, and the creation of more mail cells that require commingling or higher postage costs.

If you’re printing 10,000 pieces or only have A and B versions, this approach is somewhat manageable.

However, what happens if you want to print 100,000 or 1 million pieces and go beyond A/B testing to create C, D, and E versions?  When you take into account preprinting forms, setup time, waste, and different forms being stored in your vendor’s warehouse, this traditional method can be costly and time-consuming.

This is one reason why direct response marketers often settle for just “A/B” or “either/or” testing. They’re reluctant to push the envelope. Many have never been shown how to use modern technology to easily execute complex testing in a way that’s not only fast and cost-effective, but also can deliver better intelligence and long-term results!

How Direct Mail Testing Became Smarter, Faster, and More Efficient

Modern digital printing has taken direct mail testing capabilities to a totally new level.  With recent developments in print technology, paper, and ink, the cost has gone down considerably, while the quality has improved to near litho print quality.

High-definition digital inkjet printers introduced in just the last few years print at speeds never before possible. They also make it possible to swap out an unlimited number of offers and images on the fly in stunning, high-resolution color.

For example, if you have 100,000 pieces of mail, you can produce 100,000 unique versions since the process is driven by your data, business rules, and any images that you wish to include.

Also, keep in mind that the traditional approach requires that you break your mail file into separate postal sorts every time you create a new print version. This reduces the concentration of your mail, causing your postal costs to increase. You can use a commingling service to get a postal discount, but this can cause a delay in meeting in-home delivery dates.

Using this digital print idea, we essentially commingle versions right on the press to achieve the maximum postal discounts possible, with zero setup, waste, or storage.

The Missing Ingredient in Most Direct Mail Tests

There’s a critical component to direct mail testing with modern technology that most organizations are missing – experience.

Anyone can buy technology, but you need to have the experience to build an image library in a way that lets your data automatically pull in the right image for each piece. You need to know how to format your mail to optimize costs. And you need to understand how to track and analyze the results so your direct mail testing provides meaningful insights that enable optimizations of future campaigns.

Direct Mail Depot brings this expertise to the table for every client.  In addition to offering the right tools, we have the right people who have successfully planned and executed hundreds of complex, high-volume direct mail campaigns and can walk you through the process.

Real-World Examples of Modern Direct Mail Testing

One emerging form of insurance is pet insurance. Testing is typically A/B with a generic dog version and a generic cat version. If you know what type of animal each customer has, why not take customization and testing a step further?

For example, instead of simply having a dog version, create versions for each breed of dog that your prospect owns – German shepherd, collie, poodle, black lab, etc. Pet owners will be drawn much more to a photo that resembles the pets they love, which improves the open, engagement, and response rates.

If you’re offering auto insurance, you can run tests using an image library of not only different styles and models, but different colors of each vehicle.  For example, instead of having images of just a sedan, SUV, and pickup, you can include images for specific models in a variety of colors and customize your mail accordingly. This can all be based on the unique characteristics or desires of each recipient.

Auto insurance affinity programs for college alumni are also very popular. Rather than simply using a black-only school logo, you can use a full-color logo with a photo of a signature building on campus to grab the attention of the recipient.

For financial service companies promoting low mortgage rates, you can customize your offer and terms for each individual in full color.  Even if you’re promoting something as specific as a VA mortgage, images and offers can be customized to appeal to veterans of different generations with the goal of creating more interest and increasing open and response rates.  The added benefit is that high-speed digital print technology cuts production time in half so you can get to your prospect’s mailbox faster than your competition!

Modern technology overcomes the challenges of limitations of traditional A/B testing, while Direct Mail Depot’s experience enables you to expand your direct mail testing with confidence.  If you’d like see examples for yourself and discuss what’s possible with direct mail testing, contact us today to schedule a consultation.

“I don’t want my mailing showing up in someone’s mailbox on the same day as my competitor!”

This is a common objection we hear from companies as they plan their direct mail campaigns. They’re hesitant to commingle their direct mail because they’re afraid of sharing mailbox space with competitors.

For example, if mailings from Liberty, Geico, and State Farm are commingled, they could arrive in the same mailbox at the same time.

Of course, the same thing can happen if you drop your mail separately. In other words, a competitor’s mail could still be sorted together by the USPS and arrive on the same day! There’s no surefire way to avoid it.

The difference with commingling through Direct Mail Depot is the opportunity to save on postage. Let’s take a quick look at commingling and when it makes sense for direct mail marketing.

What Is Commingling?

Commingling is a process that involves combining, or commingling, the mailings of multiple companies to targeted areas in a way that qualifies for USPS postage discounts. A commingling provider like Direct Mail Depot can sort your mailings and deliver them to the destination Sectional Center Facility (SCF) and/or Network Distribution Center (NDC). SCFs and NDCs are USPS mail processing plants across the country.

As a result, you bypass intermediate processing facilities, reducing the number of stops your mail makes on the way to the households or businesses on your list. This saves the USPS a lot of work, which is why they offer postage discounts for commingling.

For example, pieces, you , which works out to about a penny per piece. If you’re mailing a million pieces, commingling could save you more than $10,000.

The USPS will essentially go through the same sorting process even if you don’t commingle through a provider. It just happens at a different time in a different facility and you’ll pay more in postage.

By commingling, you get the best postage rate because your mail is mixed with millions of other pieces of mail destined for the same NDCs and/or SCFs.

Again, even if you don’t use our commingling services, your mail could be mixed with competitor’s mail anyway. If Liberty, Geico, and State Farm are sending direct mail, and one household is on all three lists, all three mailings could be in the same SCF on the same day and delivered to the same mailbox at the same time.

The only difference is you won’t receive a discount on postage for commingling.

How Direct Mail Depot Approaches Commingling

The decision to commingle does not have to be an “all or nothing” proposition. Direct Mail Depot will analyze your mail to determine the most efficient way to ship and maximize your postal savings.

For example, we try to avoid dropping all mail locally, which the highest postage rate. It might make sense for you to drop-ship a portion of your mail and commingle the balance. Each mailing strategy is customized based on the density and geographical nature of your mail file.

The key takeaway here is that commingling is nothing to be afraid of. Just make sure you partner with a direct mail provider that knows the ins and outs of the USPS and how to optimize your marketing campaigns.

If you’re not sure if all or a portion of your direct mail should be commingled, contact Direct Mail Depot. We’ll analyze your mail file, explain your options, and help you minimize your postage costs.