3 Ways to Gain Control Over Marketing Mail Campaigns

With a response rate up to 15 times higher than email, marketing mail continues to generate some of the highest conversion rates of any channel. But, it can deliver even more powerful results if you know how to maximize the benefits of your campaign.

To do that, you need better control over the visibility, timing and coordination of your campaign. At minimum, you need to be able to verify whether the mail pieces that are the core of your campaign were actually sent. But beyond that, complete end-to-end tracking can help provide peace of mind and a deeper level of accountability.

Was the mailing delivered to its intended recipients? When was each mail piece delivered? When campaign results aren’t as strong as expected, this kind of information is crucial. If the response rate is underwhelming in a certain geographical region, you’d want to dig into whether those pieces were delivered as expected. Is it because the offer wasn’t compelling, or is it because recipients never saw the offer in the first place?

With more data about your marketing mail campaigns, you can make smarter decisions. Here are three areas where you should look to get more control over your campaigns.

Pinpointing campaign timing

Timing is everything in marketing, and managing in-home dates is a key component of executing a successful marketing mail campaign. When you know how long it will take to move mailpieces to intended recipients down to a specific geographic region you can better plan supporting resources.

For example, a retailer that knows the exact week when a major national marketing offer will arrive in its customer’s mailboxes will be able to staff its brick-and-mortar stores appropriately, prepare inventory ahead of time, and ensure its call centers are ready to handle a higher-than-usual volume of incoming calls. Without that information, they’re operating in the dark.

Planning campaign costs

When we talk about control, we don’t just mean control over the physical aspects of the mailing process. It’s also about controlling the cost of campaigns. Full visibility into projected costs allows you to run a more efficient and cost-effective campaign overall.

The right presort partner can provide guaranteed per-piece pricing, so you can plan the smartest campaign possible. When pricing is guaranteed from the beginning, you know what the postage costs will be in advance, avoiding any budget surprises later on. At the same time, guaranteed per-piece pricing also gives you the opportunity to be proactive and optimize the amount of mail you send to get the most volume and best possible results. For example, you might realize that based on the guaranteed low postage rate, you’ll have enough extra budget to send more mail pieces to additional recipients, thus extending the reach of your campaign.

Coordinating multichannel campaigns

The more information you have, the better, especially when you want to add other channels into the mix. With so many variables and moving parts, multichannel campaigns can be difficult to time correctly. In the past, marketing mail has been one of the more difficult activities to track or measure attribution. However, modern solutions are making it easier to track mailpieces, which in turn makes it easier to execute complex multichannel channels with many unique dependencies.

Let’s say you’re trying to run a multi-channel campaign that includes both marketing mail and mobile advertising. The success of the campaign may hinge on sending out a mobile ad right after your mailpieces arrive as a reinforcement. But, if you don’t have the ability to confirm your in-home date, or at least know when your pieces have arrived at the post office, you won’t be able to accurately time digital activations. That can result in a mistimed and less effective campaign overall.

Gaining more control over the mailing campaign gives you the information needed to run the entire campaign smoothly, from timing, to costs, to complex physical and digital activations in a data-driven marketing world.

Pitney Bowes Presort Services goes the extra mile to help you reach levels of marketing mail performance that exceed your expectations, and your customers’ expectations, too. Read “Add More Muscle to Marketing Mail,” or visit marketingmail to learn more.