THE HIDDEN COSTS OF

MISPLACED MAIL5 ways to ensure that your direct mail marketing gets delivered to the right customer, on time, every time.

Y ou’ve spent months researching, designing, and planning a world-class direct mail campaign. You’ve crafted a compelling

message for a highly targeted group of customers certain to trigger a response. And you’ve kept your buzz words to a bare

minimum. All you have to do now is sit back and watch the orders pour in, right? Well, not exactly.

The good news is, even in an increasingly digital age, direct mail is still a highly effective marketing strategy. According to

Epsilon’s 2012 Channel Preference Study, 42% of U.S. consumers said direct mail is the preferred channel to receive sensitive health in-

formation; 36% of U.S. consumers said it’s the preferred channel to receive insurance information; and 39% said the same for financial

services information. What’s more, a whopping 73% of consumers said they prefer direct mail for brand communications because they

can read the information at their convenience.

Even the majority of today’s tech-obsessed 20-somethings (76%) said in a recent U.S. Postal

Service (USPS) Household Diary Study that they’d make a purchase based on something they

received in the mail. And a June 2012 Direct Marketing Association report reveals that response

rates for direct mail to an existing customer averages 3.4%, compared to 0.12% for email.

Unfortunately, nationwide response to the USPS’s decision last year to consolidate 229 out

of its 461 mail processing locations hasn’t been as favorable. While the cost-cutting measure

is expected to save the USPS about $2.1 billion per year, consolidation could also negatively

impact direct mail campaigns.

“Marketers have direct mail delivery times down to a science so any delays can really disrupt

a campaign,” warns Paul Ercolino, president of US Monitor.

But that’s not all. Controversies over suspending Saturday delivery and possible regulatory

approval to raise prices are looming USPS proposals that promise to forever change the way mail is routed around the country. And that’s

forcing direct mailers to rethink the way they connect with customers.

The truth is, once direct mail pieces—no matter how carefully crafted—enter the mailstream, there’s no guarantee that they’ll land in

your customers’ mailboxes. Even with Intelligent Mail barcodes, many marketers have little to no intelligence on the last mile of mail delivery.

To make their direct marketing investments pay off, savvy marketers are adopting new and innovative approaches to direct mail deliv-

ery that ensure that customers and prospects receive mailers when they’ll deliver maximum impact. Strategies include maximizing the

value of barcode technology, testing delivery times, assigning a dedicated production manager, creating a mail tracking plan, and adopting

a multichannel outlook on direct mail.

Read on to gain the insight you need to get your direct mail delivered to the right customer, on time, every time.

73% of consumers said they prefer direct mail for brand communications

TIP 1. Use Mailstream Intelligence

TIP 2. Test, test, test

TIP 3. Manage your mailings

TIP 4. Respond proactively to delivery times

TIP 5. Make the most of multichannel marketing

CASE STUDYDirect mail delivery success strategies at Cenveo

Table of Contents

73% of consumers said they prefer direct mail for brand communications

TIP 1. Use Mailstream IntelligenceThe first step to avoiding misplaced mail is optimizing the use of barcode technology. This January the USPS began requiring the use of its Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMb) for commercial mailers to qualify for automation prices. This next generation of USPS barcode technology is used to sort and track letters and flats for improved delivery and increased efficiency.

The problem, however, is that it fails to track the last mile of a direct mail piece’s journey. To know exactly when and where every single piece of mail is delivered, it’s important to use a combination of IMb technology and seed locations.

Consider, for example, a direct mail campaign that’s intended to reach recipients between August 1 and August 5 in the Midwest. Howev-er, a tornado has suspended mail delivery in the region, causing at least a month-long delay. While IMb technology can inform marketers of the whereabouts of their pieces within the USPS system, there’s no telling when it will reach consumers’ homes. That is, unless marketers use a Mailstream Intelligence service that provides them with real-time information on when mail reaches its intended recipient in-home. Only by combining an IMb scan at the destination post office with the actual in-home delivery of a seeded piece of mail can marketers

quickly respond to unanticipated delays and better protect their investment in direct mail campaigns.

Takeaway list: The Mailstream Intelligence process• Decoy names and addresses are assigned to locations that marketers choose to incorporate into their mailing.

• The moment mail-receiving agents receive decoy mail, the date received, key code, promotion, and ZIP Code are documented.

• This information is then matched to the mailing information that the marketer provides to the Mailstream Intelligence service provider.

• Marketers can access password-protected mail delivery reports 24/7 from a desktop.

TIP 2. Test, test, testUniquely identifying individual mail pieces with barcode technology is one thing. But being able to anticipate how long it will take to reach a particular destination during a certain time of year is a critical insight that can help marketers establish realistic time frames for delivery. A service that tests delivery performance over the course of the year can provide the data needed to reveal patterns and establish important benchmarks. For example, a retailer may discover that direct mail delivered to a particular postal facility in Ludington, MI, arrives an aver-age of five days faster in February than in July when the facility is understaffed.

“By developing these benchmarks, marketers can look back at historical data and map out a potential delivery program to pinpoint

exactly when direct mail pieces arrive in-home,” Ercolino says.

Takeaway list: Benefits of Mailstream Intelligence• Improved response times to delays

• Enhanced customer service

• More efficient staffing of call centers

• Proof of mail delivery via detailed reports

TIP 3. Manage your mailingsMarketing organizations have someone dedicated to creating compelling direct mail campaigns. Why not have a dedicated “production manager” to oversee delivery of those campaigns to the right customers?

“Marketers need to watch over their mailings from start to finish,” Ercolino advises. “You need someone whose main focus is maintain-ing the integrity of the mail delivery times and making sure that things are running on a certain schedule. They also play an important role in seeding and tracking mail pieces and gathering all the knowledge they can on these mailings.”

While qualifications differ from job to job, key skills include being able to source, produce, and manage direct mail campaigns, serving as a liaison between stakeholders to ensure on-time delivery and an in-depth understanding of marketing objectives.

Takeaway list: Key production management skills• Detail oriented and deadline focused

• Collaborative

• Background in direct mail sourcing and production

• Project management expertise

TIP 4. Respond proactively to delivery times In the face of growing consolidation among postal facilities, marketers need to combine IMb technology with seed locations to ensure the timely delivery of direct mail. That’s because a sophisticated system of decoys and professional mail-receiving agents can provide mar-keters with important data about the efficiency of their mailings.

Another upside to Mailstream Intelligence service: Users can access a wide variety of detailed reports online—documents that reveal such key moments as when a piece leaves the printer’s truck to the second it arrives on a recipient’s doorstep.

But while there’s no denying the need for both barcode technology and seed locations, it’s critical that marketers leverage the real-time data they collect from this two-pronged system to make the best business decisions possible—and quickly.

“For any type of timed event, from a marketing perspective, it’s extremely critical to be able to respond in real time,” says Judy Kalus. Kalus would know. She’s a senior business analyst at Pitney Bowes, which offers TrackMyMail, a program that works in tandem with US Monitor’s technology to make IM barcode tracking easy.

Consider, for example, a nationwide retailer that has sent its best credit card clients on the East Coast a private sale announcement via direct mail. The event is timed, meaning that mail pieces must arrive on a recipient’s doorstep within a four-day window in order for them to take advantage of the offer.

The problem: Unforeseen flooding in certain areas has created postal delays across the re-gion. Based on the data gathered from IMb tracking and seed locations, it’s clear that the retailer’s direct mail pieces won’t arrive in time for the campaign. But there’s an upside: “Now you have time to react. You can do something about the delay rather than just examine it after the fact,” US Monitor’s Ercolino says.

For instance, the retailer can quickly send an email blast to its intended recipients notifying them of the private sale. A last-minute tele-marketing campaign can also save the day by alerting consumers to the carefully timed offer. Or the retailer may choose to put ads in the paper or purchase radio time to compensate for the delayed delivery of mail pieces.

But that’s not all. In anticipation of the event, the retailer ramped up staffing and increased inventory around the sale based on projected earnings. However, with Mailstream Intelligence data, the retailer can now perform sales forecasting and adjust its human resources and inventory investments accordingly for significant cost savings.

“…it’s extremely critical to be able to respond in real time.”

TIP 5. Make the most of multichannel marketing These days, direct mail pieces don’t exist in a vacuum. Rather, they’re one component of a multichannel marketing ecosystem. Email, direct mail, television, social, mobile, etc.; they’re all interconnected communication channels that help convey important marketing mes-sages to consumers and prospects. Because of this, even the slightest delivery delay can significantly impact an entire marketing cam-paign’s effectiveness.

“Multichannel marketing is very popular right now,” Kalus says. “So if I get an email this afternoon that says here’s an offer from a major retailer, and I go to my mailbox and there’s likely a pamphlet or a catalog that’s also tied to that email.”

Kalus notes that properly tracking direct mail pieces “allows marketers to coordinate all those different touchpoints” for maximum

return on a marketing investment.

Fast Facts: U.S. consumers who say direct mail is the preferred channel to receive:

42%

36%

39%

73%

sensitive health information

insurance information

financial services information

brand communications Source: Epsilon’s 2012 Channel Preference Study

CASE STUDY: CenveoAs one of the top direct mail producers in the United States, Cenveo can’t afford to have delays impede the delivery of its customers’ mar-keting materials. Currently, the Stamford, CT-based company delivers to the post offices of 65% of the U.S. population within 36 hours. Maintaining this high standard requires a tool that can track mail delivery and offer real-time data.

“If I have a client with an offer that begins August 1st and their direct mail arrives in-home too late, that’s not a good thing,” says Robert Summers, Cenveo’s integrated marketing specialist.

For this reason, Cenveo turned to US Monitor for its Mailstream Intelligence Service. This sophisticated combination of IMb technology and decoy addresses has provided Cenveo with a number of key benefits. For one, by using trackable IMbs and seed locations for every single project, Cenveo gains unprecedented transparency into the journey of its customers’ mail, from print facility to final destination.

“US Monitor provides me with a daily report that shows me what has been scanned by the post office and, in turn, what has actually been returned seed-wise in a particular area,” Summers says.

Another advantage of using US Monitor’s Mailstream Intelligence Service is access to a wide array of in-depth reports. That’s because Mailstream Intelligence works in conjunction with the IMb to provide mailers with real-time electronic reports about the status of their mail pieces. These user-friendly documents are available online, 24/7 so that marketers have direct access to all their mailing details without having to painstakingly hunt down the data they need.

“US Monitor is only reporting actual, real-time data so that there’s no guessing about mail delivery,” Summers says. “I have reports that are clean and simple and provide actual data rather than simply estimated numbers.”

But that’s not all. Recently, Cenveo decided to start using comingling for its First-Class Mail. Comingling involves merging multiple streams of mail into a single stream within the same ZIP Code to qualify for postal discounts. It’s a savvy business decision that Summers says wouldn’t have been possible without the real-time data gathered by US Monitor. “We found that our performance by using comingling far improves our in-home base delivery even on First-Class Mail. That was a pivotal business decision that I made based on the data provided by US Monitor.”

Another upside to Mailstream Intelligence: enhanced customer service. “US Monitor provides me with the reports and the analytics I need to not only determine in-home timing of my customers’ mail, but also to profile postal facilities to see where things are moving slowly and where things are moving quickly.” As a result of using these detailed reports, Summers is now better able to warn customers when they need to ramp up call center staff, take out radio ads, deliver email blasts, or tweak special offers.

“We’ve been able to maintain existing business because of US Monitor’s reporting feature,” Summers says. “And it’s going to help us win business in the future, as well.”

“That was a pivotal business decision that I made based on the data…”

THE SKINNYFrom consolidation to rising prices, the challenges facing marketers and their di-rect mail campaigns are on the rise. For-tunately, direct mailers need not wait until after they’ve invested hundreds of thou-sands of dollars in a marketing campaign to watch it go awry. There are preventative measures marketers can take to make sure direct mail gets to the right cus-tomer, on time, every time. This includes making use of Mailstream Intelligence, establishing benchmarks, hiring a pro-duction manager, responding proactively to real-time data, and optimizing the use of multichannel marketing. By following these five steps, marketers can prevent misplaced and mistimed mail and derive the most value possible from their direct mail marketing initiatives.