What is the difference in delivery times between postage rates

Choosing between postage classes can be a confusing thing. Just how speedy is First Class mail in comparison to Standard Mail? Lets sort out the facts. First-Class mail is usually delivered within 1-3 days when mailed locally from the post office your mail was sent from, or 1-5 days nationally. Standard Mail (formerly known as Bulk Rate mail) costs less, but takes slightly longer to be delivered. Standard Mail usually takes 4-8 days when delivered locally from the post office your mail was sent from, or 10-14 days nationally. The benefit with First Class mail is that it has priority over Standard Mail, which means the delivery times are much more consistent. Depending on the time of year, Standard Mail can take longer than normal to deliver because the First Class mail will be delivered first. This problem may be able to be avoided if you plan your mailing ahead and mail earlier during peak seasons, such as holidays. However, if your promotion is absolutely time-sensitive First Class postage is the best way to go.

Great marketing is never done

So many businesses only give their marketing serious thought when times are tough. This thinking is not sound because marketing takes time to take effect, and if you wait until you need instant results you will have waited too long. In order to grow a strong organization, you must create an ongoing marketing plan that works seamlessly. Your marketing must be a continual process.

The key to successful marketing is to craft a plan that can be implemented easily and effectively on a regular basis. A good marketing strategy will employ several types of media. So how do you know what media types are right for you? Trial and error is really the only way to know. Stay open-minded. A medium that you may think is ineffective might just work really well and vice versa.

On that same note, make sure you give each medium a fair shot. The value of a medium cannot usually be judged by a one-off attempt. Your message or approach may need tweaking or your timing may be off. Make sure you test and track each approach with a substantial trial. Some staple media are: direct mail marketing, email marketing, paid search advertising and social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). If there is a publication that is distributed to your target market you may wish to try placing an ad in the publication, but those results will be harder to track. Don’t forget to work cold calling or cold emailing into the plan. Literal one-to-one communication is a dying art, and you will be surprised to find the impact of real person-to-person communication can be very rewarding.

Once you have determined which medium to try, make sure you think carefully about the relevancy of each of your messages for each specific medium. You will probably find that your messaging needs to be tweaked for each media outlet (i.e. direct mail needs to be concise, persuasive and offer-driven, social media might be much more personal and casual, paid search will incorporate keywords and targeted landing pages, etc.).

When you have found a mix of media that works for you, put a plan in place to implement these strategies regularly. This plan should become part of your regular routine and shouldn’t be so cumbersome that you get bogged down by it. A smaller organization’s mix might include 3-4 marketing outlets, whereas a larger organization may include more.

The purpose of the plan is to make your marketing workload predictable, however it is important that you make sure the messaging you send out is not predictable. Branded, yes. Predictable, no. It is vital that, no matter the medium, your content remains fresh and relevant to your prospect’s self-interest. No one wants to hear time and time again about how great you are, but would probably love to hear about how you will make their life better or easier.

You may not see instant results from your marketing plan. Prospects need time to move through the sales process. Sometime they just don’t need what you are offering for months or even years. But when they do, your steady marketing should have positioned you in a prominent place in their minds. Over time, a consistent marketing plan will aid in stabilizing the flow of incoming clientele to your business.

Nonprofit Tip: The value of a single story

As an organization, its easy to get carried away selling the good of an organization as a whole. However, studies show that donors have a more favorable reaction when the goals of an organization are expressed using a single story. It seems a donor can step into the shoes of one person much easier than those of a group or entity. When telling a single story, you can go into much more detail about that person—details that hang in your donors’ minds, details that enable them to relate to your mission, details that motivate them to give. The fact is that people form a connection with the story of a single person much easier than that of a collective. And this connection drastically increases their incentive to give.

Are you harvesting the power of your existing customers?

As direct mail marketers, we often get so focused on obtaining new customers that we forget to nurture our existing customers. The fact is that existing customers are an incredibly profitable piece of your prospect base.

Why nurture your existing customers?
In a nutshell, the 80/20 rule should be reason enough to reconsider how you are handling your existing customers. The 80/20 rule states that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers. With a rule like that, you’d have to be crazy not to consider investing in your existing customers.

Not only does an existing customer cost much less than a new one—less marketing dollars, no training on your internal processes, you already understand their expectations and communication style—but a customer who purchases not only once, but twice is much more likely to keep coming back. They are also more likely to refer, and referrals give a great boost to your bottom line. Consider how many contacts each of your customers might have—25, 50, 100? Imagine how long it would take your sales force to not only locate but to make contact with that many prospects. These leads are at the tip of your customer’s finger, which means your existing customer could turn into a great tool for growing your business.

How to tap into the power of repeat customers and create referrals.
First and foremost you’ve got to get in your customer’s head. What you think they value about your product or service may not be the case. It might be your sales representative’s quirky sense of humor, rather than your low pricing that keeps them coming back. Dig around a little and try to read between the lines as to why they are loyal. Once you know why they love you, you can use that to your advantage. You can do this in several ways.

First, whatever you are doing that they love you for, keep doing it and find ways to continue improving to satisfy them even more. Never let your service slack just because you feel you already have them as a customer. Be consistent in your brand values in terms of product, service and communication. Stay in contact with them, and keep it as personal as possible. Watch out for their best interest and work to keep them impressed. After all, these people are potentially walking advertisements for your company. They are worth a few extra minutes on the phone or an extra email updating them on the status of their project or a new product they may find interesting. When applicable, feel free to acknowledge that you always appreciate their quality referrals. And if they refer, ALWAYS remember to thank them personally!

Second, consider how you can use your knowledge of their needs to produce more business from them. For example, if they consistently purchase one product or service from you, but you have a second, companion product or service that could benefit them, make sure to point this out. With today’s technology, you could even offer up this product while making a splash in their mailbox with a personalized direct mail campaign.

The moral of the story is to pony up and start treating your loyal, existing customers like they matter. After all, they potentially make up the bulk of your livelihood. If that isn’t worth a little of your time and money, I don’t know what is.

New USPS Flat Automation Changes Flat Mail Panel Requirements

The USPS recently announced that it has acquired new equipment to enable the automation of flat-rate mail. As a result, the mail panel requirements for these pieces have changed. The biggest change is that the mail panel portion of your flat-rate mail must now fall in the top half of your piece. As defined by the post office, for pieces not enclosed in an envelope or polybag, the top half of the piece is either one of the shorter edges when the bound or final folded edge is vertical and on the right-hand side of the piece. The address may be parallel or perpendicular to the top edge, but never upside-down and of course the postage must also fall within this top half. As for placement of your delivery address and return address in relation to the postage, feel free to continue positioning these items as usual, with the postage to the right or upper right of your delivery address and the return address about 1 inch above and to the left of your delivery address. These changes are effective immediately.

Get creative with your mail panel in an automation-friendly way

Questions about mail panels are constantly buzzing around our office. What size should the panel be? Can it have a background color or pattern? Can the indicia be inside the mail panel or should it be outside of it? Is there any way to make the mail panel interfere less with the postcard design?

Throughout our years in direct mail design and production, we’ve narrowed down a few answers to these questions that will hopefully help you in your direct mail design.

How big does the mail panel need to be?
The mail panel must be a minimum of 4” wide by 2” high, and should be anchored at the right-hand side of your piece, usually towards the bottom. This room is needed in order to inkjet on the address and barcode in a font size that is readable by USPS postal equipment. By leaving this room, you ensure that your mail piece will qualify for the lowest automation rate, which could save you a lot of money. If you fail to provide enough room, your mail piece may need to be addressed using labels, which doesn’t exactly produce the most professional look, and you may be charged extra as the piece may not be able to be automated.

Can the postage be inside this 4” x 2” mail panel?
We recommend leaving the entire 4” x 2” mail panel clear for addressing, and therefore recommend moving the postage area or indicia just above the top right corner of the mail panel.

Does my mail panel have to be shaped like a rectangle?
The mail panel does not have to be rectangular in shape, but whatever shape you choose you absolutely MUST ensure that there is 4” x 2” clear of space to add the address.

Does the mail panel have to be white in color?
The mail panel does not have to be white and can be a very light tint of a color. If you choose to tint your mail panel, it should be no more than 8% screen. If the color gets darker than 8%, there is a risk that the color will get too dark and will not contrast with the address that is inkjet on. If the address does not contrast enough, it will not be able to be read by USPS equipment.

Can I put a pattern in my mail panel?
Much like the rule about color, you can use a pattern, but it must not interfere with the address or barcode area. This means it must follow the same rule of 8% tint and it should not be high in contrast or contain vertical lines that would interfere with reading the barcode.

How can I make the mail panel less interruptive to my design?
This is a popular question, and we believe that the most discreet way of formatting a mail panel is to stretch a 2” strip across the entire bottom of the piece. This method is a little more elegant and doesn’t interrupt the flow of content as much as a 4” x 2” rectangle, however you will lose a little more page real estate.

Are you mailing to the right people?

When planning a direct mail campaign, most people arduously deliberate about copy, format, design, and mail schedule. While each of these points are very important to the overall success of the mailing, the most critical aspect of the mailing—your mailing list—is often given much less attention. Many people blindly use an in-house customer list that hasn’t been examined in years or purchase a generic list without ever considering testing and evaluating its effectiveness. How profitable can your carefully crafted mail promotion be if its recipient isn’t a qualified prospect? You must carefully plan your mailing list—it is the make-or-break factor of your mailing.

In fact, in today’s penny-pinching economy, paying closer attention to your mailing list is a great way to start saving money on your mailing. Mailing to the wrong people, duplicate addresses or invalid addresses can all add up to a sizable waste of print, production and postage costs.

In order to maximize your mailing and minimize your mail costs you are going to need to put some man-power into your list, but where do you start?

The best place to start refining your mail list is by using your existing customer database to build a “client profile” of your ideal customer. Your client profile should outline things like age, income, gender, location, profession, purchase history, etc. The more information you have about who your current clients really are, the better equipped you are to start narrowing down what kinds of people are supporters and purchasers of your product. You will be able to use the client profile to edit your house mail list and aid in selection of rented or purchased lists to supplement your house list.

When your client profile is complete, you can use the criteria to evaluate and edit your existing house mail list. Do you have prior customers who don’t fit your profile and haven’t responded to your advances in a while? Do you have prospects who refuse to convert to customers? After analyzing the list, don’t be afraid to trim the fat and clear your list of prospects who don’t show a real likelihood of purchasing your product. These contacts are simply robbing you of your postage dollars and pushing your response rates down. Its a waste of time and money marketing to people who clearly don’t fit into your client profile and show no signs of purchasing.

Ideally, you want to be mailing to people, not companies. Your mail list should contain an actual contact name, not just a company name. An actual contact name greatly improves that your mail piece will get into the right hands and be acted on. If you are unable to obtain contact names, you could address the piece to a specific position, such as ‘Supply Manager’ or ‘Household Shopper.’ Of course this is much less specific, but it should help in getting your mail piece into the hands of the right person.

Once your mail list is refined, it is important to make sure it stays in good shape. Your list will quickly begin to lose value if it is not maintained. You should have the list de-duped (checked for duplicate entries) and check for address validity often.

It is in your best interest to add to and validate the information in your database as often as possible through the use of mailed, emailed or phone surveys. Cross-reference this new database information against your mail list criteria and add or subtract from your mail list accordingly. The more information you have in your database, the better idea you have of your clients, which leads to higher-quality improvements in your mailing list.

After all this revision, your list will most likely end up shorter than it began. It is better to mail to a smaller, high-quality list than a large list full of prospects who will never purchase. If you are uncomfortable with the brevity of your list, you can always supplement your list with a rented or purchased list. Thanks to your new client profile, you will have a solid outline of criteria that can help you select a supplemental list. If you choose to purchase additional names to add to your house list, it is a great idea to test a small sampling of the list before purchasing and mailing to the entire list.

Your mail list is a constantly changing, growing, evolving thing. Its a tremendous company asset and the greatest factor in whether how mail promotion will perform. Be sure to give your list the attention it deserves—its got a big job to do.