Streamline your statement mailings

Is your utility company trying to cut costs for the coming year? If so, are you still trying to manage your statement mailings in-house? Although manufacturing your statements in-house may seem like a money-saving procedure, many organizations, like utilities, who use monthly statements are finding that keeping up with emerging USPS technologies and requirements is getting to be more and more costly.

If you are feeling overwhelmed with keeping up with the ever-changing USPS regulations, it may be time to consider outsourcing your statement mailings. Here are a few things to consider:

Cost and ability to keep up with changing standards
Direct mail is in a state of constant change. In order to keep receiving the best postage rate for your statements, you need to keep up with specific USPS standards. Should you miss a step, you could end up costing yourself a significant sum of money. Working with a professional mailing company means that you are hiring a source who must keep up-to-date with all changes made by the USPS—their business relies on it.

Cost of your statement processing personnel
Even if you are managing to keep up with the ever-changing USPS standards and equipment, is it taking your personnel too long to process your statements? If you were to hire a professional mailing company, they should be able to process a 10,000-piece, single-sheet statement mailing in about 3 hours. Given the increased speed of processing, hiring a professional printing and mailing company may prove to be a more affordable option than funding the salaries of individuals who process your statements.

Cost of miseducation and errors
Do your mailings often end up in a rush to get out, due to the complexity of the task? Do mistakes result? Do your personnel find themselves repeating tasks due to miseducation or changing standards. How much could it be costing you not only in postage and supply costs, but in wasted salaries when an error is made or tasks are needlessly repeated? When you choose to outsource your statement mailings, you are hiring a company who has statement mailing down to a streamlined science, which means your mailings get out on-time and on-budget.

Think like your customer

Have you ever received a mail piece that just seemed to make no sense to you? Did the piece advertise odd features of a product, or was it hard to read? You can learn a lesson from these mailers and when its your turn to create your mail piece, make sure to create it from your customer’s point of view.

But how exactly do you think like your customer?

First off, realize what’s important to you, might not be important to your customer. As you are conceptualizing your piece, try to think about the features of your product, service or event that stand out to you as a user. Depending on your subject, these may be quite different than what stands out to you as an observer within your organization. For example, you may be tempted to use technical verbiage that is meaningful within your organization, but is not easily understandable to your end user. It may be in your best interested to explain the technical verbiage to the prospect, or choose simpler verbiage when applicable.

Second, narrow your focus for quicker communication. Often, direct mailers make the mistake of trying to fit too much information within a small space. Too much information leads to clutter. In today’s over-messaged marketplace, simple stands out. Direct mail offers are processed quickly by your readers, and in order to make an impact within the short amount of time your readers give each mail piece, you must be concise and targeted in your concept. Give the reader only as much information as they need to take your desired action—call your office, log on to your website or stop by your facility, etc. There’s a good chance that you will still need to offer your prospect more information once they contact you but remember, the goal of direct mail is to acquire qualified, interested leads that you can convert into sales once the prospect contacts you.

Finally, give your prospects a good reason to call. The most important part of your direct mail promotion is the offer, and you’d better make it compelling enough to get a response. Remember the old adage, you’ve gotta give something to get something. A temporary discount, and added bonus or even a valuable packet of information can be great offers. All-too-often mailers make the mistake of simply offering their information up to prospects with “nothing in it” for the prospect. In today’s self-centric society, the offer, or customer benefit, is what gets your prospects to call.

Start out your 2009 with a Bang!

With the shaky state that our nation’s economy is in, organizations everywhere are feeling pressure to acquire new business and retain current clientele. Businesses everywhere need reliable ways to bring in leads and revenue in 2009. The good news is that direct mail is the perfect medium for these uncertain times. Direct mail possesses a unique set of properties that lend to its effectiveness. It is affordable, time-tested, targeted and measurable—all items that work for your bottom line.

Direct mail is affordable.  It is a price-conscious medium that can be used by organizations of any size. You are in control of the quantity of prospects you mail to, which greatly affects the ultimate cost of the mailing. Plus, with direct mail, there are endless formats to experiment with which vary in cost from extremely affordable to more expensive.

Direct mail is time-tested.  It has been around for decades. Many gimmicky forms of advertising have come and gone throughout the years, but ultimately direct mail has stood the test of time. It continues to perform for organizations across the world, helping them generate leads and revenue.

Direct mail is targeted.  This is probably the biggest reason that direct mail has been an effective advertising medium for so many years. Direct mail lists can segmented into many different categories using different criteria, such as age, income, or location, just to name a few. The options are limited only by your budget.

Direct mail is measurable.  By using tracking codes on your website URL, coupons or simply asking responders, you can see how many responses or inquiries your mailing has produced. Using this data, you can slowly tweak your campaigns as needed to drive up the response rate. If you don’t gather the correct data, you will not understand how to modify your campaigns to improve response.

If your existing campaign has lost its luster, you may wish to rethink and retool the campaign for the new year. Keep in mind that even experienced mailers might not see their perfect response on the first try of a new campaign, and so don’t be a quitter! Allow yourself the time to refine a new campaign to perform at its best. Once you have fine-tuned your campaign, consistency is the key—you never know when your prospects will need you. By using the unique properties of direct mail to their fullest you can achieve soaring sales results in 2009!

The Mail Messenger is born.

Because the world of direct mail is constantly changing, we have decided to begin publishing this blog, entitled the Mail Messenger. The goal is to publish articles and bits of information on a regular basis that showcase the latest direct mail concepts, techniques and formats. We hope you will find this to be a valuable, informational and inspirational tool as you continue to produce your direct mail campaigns.