Cutting Mailing Costs Makes “Cents”

By Joe Haddad

 

Companies spend more than $3 billion annually on direct mail marketing. Small and mid-sized businesses typically spend up to $200,000 per year on postage alone. This means that cutting mailing costs by as little as 1 percent can add thousands of dollars per year to your bottom line.

 

There are a variety of ways to decrease the dollars your business spends on direct mail marketing. Sometimes even making slight changes in format and size can substantially reduce mailing costs. Many factors, including paper size and weight, do not affect the quality or impact of the piece, but can dramatically impact postage costs. Consulting with a printer or graphic designer knowledgeable about Canada Post mailing requirements early in the production process can help your organization maximize savings.

 

According to Canada Post consumer research, Canadians most welcome direct mail and pay the most attention to it. When compared with other methods of direct marketing, consumers pay most attention to addressed and unaddressed direct mail (42 percent), as opposed to other marketing vehicles such as direct response television ads (23 percent) and e-mail (3 percent).

 

Direct Mail Options

Canada Post offers Addressed Admail™ and Unaddressed Admail^™ options for direct mail. Both can result in substantial dollar savings for your business by targeting key prospects and buyers and following postal distribution requirements.

 

Addressed Admail^™ is Canada Post’s most economical direct mail tool, which enables companies to target promotional messages to specific individuals and/or specific addresses. This direct mail option offers an ideal opportunity to maintain customer contact, connect with prospects and measure results.

 

Unaddressed Admail is a targeted direct mail service that delivers advertising messages to more than 13 million Canadian addresses. Marketing materials can be targeted to specific neighbourhoods or localities, and to homes, apartments, farms or businesses by postal code and letter-carrier walks within the postal code. Items must be unaddressed but may include wording such as Occupant, Householder, Occupant, Resident or Boxholder.

 

There is some work involved in taking advantage of additional savings for direct mail. For example, with each type of direct mail piece, there are specific length, width, quantity, weight, height and content requirements, all of which can be found in one of several Canada Post Customer Guides or on their Web site at www.canadapost.ca.

 

Getting the Message Out

For organizations without an in-house mailing department, any mailing can be a lot of work. Your print professional may offer mailing services, and should be familiar with the requirements and specifications for Unaddressed Admail^™, Addressed Admail^™ and Business Reply Mail. Many printers can handle every step of the mail process for you, from design and printing of a piece to documentation and distribution.

 

Direct mail, though very effective, is typically one of the largest line items in an organization’s annual budget. It makes good sense to do whatever you can to reduce mailing costs and get the best value for your advertising dollars.