Smart List, Mail Design Cut Postage Costs

Maximizing direct mail ROI requires cost efficiency, especially in the postage realm. Good list selection and hygiene are key to avoiding mailing waste. Another important factor in controlling postage costs is mail package design. If you are sending mailings to the wrong people, people unlikely to be interested in your offer, lower response rate and cost inefficiency will be reflected in poor ROI. Using tools from predictive modeling to customer profiling to segmentation can improve list choices and targeting parameters. Plus, AccuList USA's proprietary list research can help clients find the top-performing lists for their specific vertical market. But no matter how data is targeted, dirty data with duplicates, errors, invalid addresses, and old demographic or purchase history information will create costly delivery failures and misdirected waste. That's why AccuList USA goes beyond list brokerage to provide expert merge-purge services that combine and standardize data in order to eliminate duplicates, identify and correct old or undeliverable addresses, verify zip codes, and maximize postal discounts. In fact, by comparing names and addresses to real-time information on multiple public and private databases, AccuList USA offers an advanced hygiene regimen that is able to identify and correct twice as many addresses as standard USPS FASTforward and NCOALink use, which only represent a portion of U.S. movers and undeliverables. USPS offers postage discounts to mail pieces that are not only addressed correctly but also designed for processing on automated equipment. For mail to qualify for the lowest postage rates, the mail piece needs to be at a letter size, which is a minimum of 3 ½" high by 5" long and a maximum of 6" high by 10½" long. Larger mail pieces fall into the flat category, which can cost more than twice as much per piece as a letter. Plus, to take advantage of automation, the piece must by rectangular, with an aspect ratio (length divided by height) of 1.3 to 2.5, or risk costing twice as much in postage. The addressing and barcode block on letter size mail also must fit into the USPS OCR read area to avoid additional postage. Naturally, weight matters. Keep the weight of a folded self-mailer under 1 ounce; if the piece weighs over 3 ounces, it must go in an envelope. Thickness counts, too.  If a mail piece is less than 0.009" thick, it costs more in postage. On the other hand, the maximum thickness for letter size mail is ¼" and for flat size is ¾". For more, see http://www.acculistusa.com/smart-list-mail-design-choices-help-save-on-postage/

Direct Mailers Fear Late Deliveries This Fall

Coming into the busy autumn mailing season, direct mailers and catalogers are worried about the potential for significant late mail deliveries this year, reports Direct Marketing News magazine's Senior Editor Al Urbanski. The concern is based on a recent report by the Office of Inspector General that late mail deliveries by the U.S. Postal Service rose 48% in the first six months of 2015 compared with the same period last year. A rise in delayed mail was expected after the USPS made major operational changes in January, including shifting of a significant portion of Standard Mail from a two-day to a three-day service standard. But the revealed size of the delivery impact has mailers fretting. The OIG has tried to allay fears by noting that on-time delivery has improved, going from 472 million late deliveries in January to just 64 million in June. But the heavy fall mailing season lies ahead, and mailers are especially concerned about poor USPS performance in predicting real-time delivery so they have enough time to adjust their plans for crucial fall mailings. See the full story: http://www.dmnews.com/postal/late-deliveries-raise-concerns-of-mailers/article/433025/

Costly Bad-Address Returns Still Plague Mailers

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/

USPS Unveils Real-Time Mobile Notification of Mail

The U.S. Postal Service announced a new product to further marry digital and direct mail channels by allowing mail recipients to see what mail is arriving in real time on their mobile devices, reports Target Marketing magazine. Called “Real Mail Notification,” the soon-to-come product was unveiled to direct mailers by USPS Postmaster General Megan Brennan at the recent National Postal Forum in Anaheim, Calif. Nine out of 10 consumers participating in a Northern Virginia product pilot are checking daily on their mobile devices to see what’s arriving in their physical mailboxes, she told PostalNews.com, which also reports that a New York City pilot of the RMN program will launch later this year. Brennan touted RMN mobile notification to EcommerceBytes.com in the Target Marketing story: “If you see that you’re receiving a mailpiece from a favorite retailer, you can click on that piece for an additional offer that drives you to open that mail when you get home. Or, you might jump directly to a transaction. In either event, the physical mail piece draws you into the interactive experience.” In her speech to the National Postal Forum, Brennan claimed, “We saw a 10-fold jump in response rate for the pieces we tested.” For more detail and a link to Brennan's speech transcript: http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/usps-goes-digital-with-daily-real-mail-notification/

USPS 'Load-Leveling' Would Alter Delivery Schedules

Marketers face changes in their mail delivery schedules this spring if the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) implements a proposed plan to “level the load” handled by its carriers during the week, DM News reports. Currently, mailers that qualify for a Destination Sectional Center Facility (DSCF) discounted rate can expect Monday delivery of mail accepted by facilities on Thursday or Friday. Under the load-leveling plan, set to take effect on March 27, Standard Mail accepted on Friday would not be delivered until Tuesday, and mail accepted on Saturday would have a promised delivery day of Wednesday. DSCF Standard Mail is comprised mostly of direct mail letters, catalogs, flyers, and other advertising mail. The USPS has sought an advisory opinion from the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) on the plan, which the USPS tested in its South Jersey District last September. It's possible the PRC will send the Postal Service back to the drawing board, but mailers should be prepared for altered delivery schedules. See the news story at http://www.dmnews.com/usps-aims-to-institute-load-leveling-in-march/article/328622/