Can Tri-Win Save You Money on Your Mailings?

business mail, Direct Mail, USPS

If you are looking to improve your ROI on your direct mail piece (and who isn’t?), it is important to get the lowest costs possible.  Tri-Win employees work hard to allow our customers the best printing prices and postage discounts.  If you’ve sent a lot of
direct mail, you already know that postage expenses are usually the most costly
portion of a direct mail campaign.  Our staff has experience in a variety of mailing products and we know what it takes to obtain postage rate incentives.

There is a lot to be said about the different “co” programs that are available now from the United States Postal Service – commingle, comailing and copalletize.  All are ways to save money on postage, and when combined can offer significant discounts on mailings.

When we first started working with BAI and their Midwestern client they were mailing
350,000 to 400,000 pieces per month of nonprofit letter size mail destined for
areas throughout the United States. Realizing that much of their mail was not
receiving any kind of entry discount when dropping it locally, we suggested the
process of copalletization.  If you are unfamiliar with the term – let’s look
at what copalletization can offer.  In copalletizing, mail trays that have been addressed and sorted are combined on the same pallet with trays from multiple customers going to the same destinations.  These full pallets are then entered in the USPS’s National Distribution Center (NDC) nationwide or into one of the Sectional Center Facilities (SCF).  The SCF is a USPS processing and distribution center that serves a designated geographical area defined by the first 3 digits in a zip code.

At first BAI was hesitant as they did not want their client’s mail pieces to
experience any longer delivery time. We provided them with a study showing the
rate at which a 12 million piece sampling of mail was delivered using the copal
process. This study showed delivery times on par with what they were currently
experiencing mailing from Dallas. The added perk for their client was that
after all logistics costs were taken into account there was an average savings of
$2,500 per month in postage.

By entering the mail at a NDC or SCF, our customers benefit from:

  • Greater postal discounts
  • Better tracking abilities
  • Faster shipping as copalletized mail enters the USPS closer to the destination

Tri-Win saved BAI and their client over $30,000 in 2011.  Can we save you money on your
mailing campaigns?  We are postage professionals at Tri-Win and will work with you to ensure your piece meets all USPS regulations and that you receive the best postage rates in the direct mail industry.  We can also help you design your piece and provide you with an accurate mailing list. Give us a call at (866) 809-8998 and let us show you how to save money on your next direct mail campaign.

Get a Discount on Your Direct Mailings this Summer

business mail, Direct Mail, QR Codes, USPS

The US Postal Service is offering a two percent discount on mailings during the months of July and August.  In order to qualify for the discount, the mail piece must contain a QR code.  QR or Quick Response codes are two dimensional barcodes that drive users from printed material to the web via a smartphone.  According to the US Post Office, “mobile technology is one of the fastest growing marketing sectors.  And when combined with marketing mailers, it can help businesses stay relevant and increase their profit.”  https://www.usps.com/mobile-barcode.htm

The discount applies to Standard Mail and First-Class Mail letters, flats and cards with a 2D barcode that can be read or scanned with a mobile device.   When scanned, the technology must activate a link directly to either a mobile-optimized Web page that allows the mail recipient to purchase a product or service or to a mobile-optimized and customized Web page uniquely tailored to the mail recipient and accessible by a personalized URL.

USPS searches for more advertising mail

business mail, Direct Mail, USPS

The US Postal Service literally guaranteed the effectiveness of integrating direct mail into marketing campaigns when it launched a postage-back assurance program in mid-May to attract the business of large marketers. The USPS is conducting the “Mail Works Guarantee” to convert large advertisers into direct mail marketers and to counter the large yearly drops it is seeing in First Class mail.

“Direct mail is the most effective and measurable way to get a message to consumers, and we know it won’t automatically go to a spam folder,” said Susan Plonkey, VP of sales at the USPS. “Of course, a direct mail piece is only as good as its offer and targeting.”

The USPS will use its experience to advise brands on how to effectively include mail in their marketing mix but will not assist with metrics or branding advice, she adds.

“We assume companies will already have very solid metrics in place to determine success. What we believe we can do is improve the performance of that campaign with direct mail. We also assume companies have determined the right brand message,” said Plonkey. “With our years of experience, and our vast amount of data on the effectiveness of direct mail and our knowledge of how to improve the read and response rate of direct mail, we believe we are uniquely positioned to help companies incorporate direct mail into their advertising mix.”

The USPS has declined to name the large brands that are participating in the program, but the program’s parameters say each must spend at least $25 million annually on advertising and mail between 500,000 and 1 million pieces of Standard or First Class mail yearly. The Postal Service will refund up to $250,000 in postage costs if their mail campaigns don’t meet agreed-upon expectations.

Industry experts say direct mail still adds a vital element to most campaigns, despite the fact that many brands have moved a significant amount of their spending to digital.

“In many cases, there’s only a 20% click rate with digital,” says Russell Kern, founder and president of The Kern Organization, a direct marketing agency. “What about the other 80%? Digital is faster and less expensive, but single-channel marketing isn’t effective for any brand. When you lose mail, you close a door.”

However, Jeff Hassemer, VP of product strategy for the data management services group at Experian, notes that the integration of marketing campaigns has hurt direct mail in recent years as brands have moved spending to other areas. For that reason, the initiative will likely not turn many major advertisers into direct mailers, he adds.

“They have not reduced volumes because direct mail on the whole was not working for them, they reduced mail volumes because they are achieving a greater return on investment from the combination of direct mail and additional marketing channels,” says Hassemer. “In the end, a company will maximize its marketing investment across all channels. Direct mail was king of this for quite some time, but marketers are now focused on maximizing budgets across all marketing channels based on return alone.”