With advances in data technology and systems offered by the U.S. Postal Service, such as National Change of Address, direct mailers should have seen a decline in "return to sender" address glitches in recent years. Not so, points out Direct Marketing News magazine Senior Editor Al Urbanski in a recent article. In fact, according to USPS figures, 3.7% of first-class mail was returned to senders in 2014, up from the 3.4% in 2004. That small percentage adds up to big costs for direct mailers. Urbanski cites estimates by Novitex, a mail management company, that each piece of returned mail costs marketers between $3 and $50 a piece, with the higher hit on transactional mailers receiving payments for insurance premiums, merchandise purchases, credit card payments, and loan payments. But all mailers are burdened by wasted printing, prep, postage and data processing spends, as well as customer churn and lost opportunities. What to do? The fundamental problem is bad mailing-list data, despite all the systems available to keep lists clean and updated. So Novitex urges using automated services for address updating, including NCOA; centralized returned mail operations to improve reaction and cut risk of postal service audits and lost discounts; and implementation of data technology to track mail behavior to the root causes of returns. For the complete article: http://www.dmnews.com/direct-line-blog/return-to-sender-is-still-high-on-mailers-playlists/article/421022/
David Kanter, President and CEO of AccuList, is a list brokerage and direct marketing expert. For more than 30 years, he has helped companies and nonprofit organizations achieve their marketing goals. With David's Direct Marketing Forum, he shares, and invites others to share, helpful direct-marketing industry news, trends, analyses, resources, and tips for success. Please read our Comment Policy.
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