Dear Misguided Customer...

Dear Misguided Customer,

I know times are tough and resources are scarce. Yes, I realize that everyone is trying to come up with ideas to pinch pennies and save money.

But some ideas are just plain bad ideas.

Yes, I know that God helps those who help themselves. I’m sure the Bible and Ben Franklin would agree. Self-sufficiency is a good thing.

Yes, I know that for years your organization has used volunteers to fold, insert, seal and stamp your appeals and newsletters. So what if the news is stale by the time it gets to its destination? Your volunteers get a sense of connecting with your organization and doing something good for their community. Tradition is a good thing.

Up to a point.

Continuing to do something the “way we’ve always done it” those are your exact words!—without questioning if that way works any more isn’t just bad, it’s plain stupid.

Yes, I know you’re the newbie on staff. You don’t want to shake things up or jeopardize the job it took you 8 months to find. I got that. But blind adherence to “Tradition” is costing your organization cold, hard cash—money that could be put into services.

I bet your boss would love to simplify her life, get newsletters and appeals out faster…and save the cost of your salary in the bargain. The only thing standing in your way is “Tradition.” Show her what I’m going to show you, you will be her hero on the white horse. And that’s a lock-tight guarantee.

Hang on. Here we go…

I betcha that years ago, when a newsletter or appeal was ready to mail, someone—probably your predecessor—called for all hands on deck from the office staff. But that got old really old fast. Maybe the task built staff esprit de corps, but when assigned duties weren’t getting done, there was a lot of bad juju.

So your predecessor put out the plea for volunteers, and volunteers—God Bless ‘em—responded. For years that cadre of loyal ladies folded and stuffed, licked and sticked their way through countless thousands of envelopes.

It takes 3 weeks to get out each newsletter, but it costs your organization nothing. Right? Let’s think about it.

You have to feed the ladies milk and cookies, and you have to keep supervisory staff on hand “just in case.” But that is minimal. Right?

You have to keep recruiting volunteers, which is a constant hassle, but…

Then once a year you have to throw a big “Volunteer Appreciation Gala.” While that gala costs a lot of money, and takes a bunch of staff time to coordinate, it is the price you have to pay to compensate your volunteers.

Your organization is stuck in the past, my Friend, in “Old Think.”

Here are the facts:

1. It takes 3 weeks to assemble, address, wafer seal and mail 10,000 newsletters. The “news” in the newsletters is old by the time it hits the mail. In this day of instantaneous news, stale stuff is poison. That’s an obvious image problem for you. It makes you seem out of touch. Fuddy Duddy. No wonder new volunteers are scarce.

2. Because your appeals aren’t unique to each donor, the likelihood is that you are as asking donors who could give $100 to give $10—your “default” ask. This screams out for better data management and personalization. It’s costing your organization big moola.

If points 1 and 2 address squishy unquantifiables, here is what Blind Tradition is costing in cold, hard cash:

3. It takes a staffer 4 hours every night to supervise the volunteer crew. If that person makes $20 an hour, you’re spending $80 a night to get “Free” labor. $20,800 a year.

4. Volunteer victuals are another $20 per night. That’s $100 a week. $5200 a year.

5. What does the Volunteer Appreciation Gala and extra wear and tear on your facility cost? I can’t even hazard a guess.

Discounting the Gala, you're at $26,000 a year in expenses to compensate your “free” volunteer labor force. Not enough to convince you to rethink Old Think Tradition? Try this:

6. You’re paying 17.9 cents each in postage per newsletter. It’s better than paying First Class, but as a non-profit you should be paying about 13.2 cents! That means you’re paying an extra 4.7 cents per piece in postage because you lack the basic mailing technology that the USPS requires.

Every month your 10,000 newsletters are contributing $470 unnecessary postage to the USPS. That’s another $5640 a year.

See how you're paying your -- salary $ 31,640 -- a year in unnecessary costs? That’s a lot of money any day, but in this economy that’s an enormous waste.

Yes, waste. Stupid waste.

And it gets worse.

7. You know that many the addresses you’re mailing to are wrong and many of the people have moved. But you don’t know which are wrong, and you don’t know how to fix your list. So you keep mailing to them. Yet every one of these badly addressed pieces is costing you money: Money to print. Money to mail.

If you have money to burn—and I know you don’t—then keep on using your Old Think Traditional ways.

The solution is obvious: move your direct mail marketing into the 21st Century by working with a professional direct marketing firm.

Work with them to clean up your list. Correct bad addresses. Get rid of deadwood. Run your data against NCOA—National Change of Address software. Cost: $50-100 plus any data clean up effort.

Now turn your mailings over to that mailing professional. Your postage will plummet and you’ll be in the mail lickety split.

Cost: Roughly $500 to process your 10,000 newsletters.

Production time: 2 days

Bottom line: 2 days versus 3 weeks. Best yet, the postage you’ll save pays for the mailshop. Not bad, eh? But there’s more: because your mail will have barcodes, it will arrive faster and in better condition.

You’ll see some cost increases in your appeals, but the extra effort to personalize letters and responses will bring in far more money than the cost of the personalization.

Don't know where to turn? Call me. I'll give you recommendations.

Don’t believe me? One of our nonprofit clients brought in 35% more than they had ever raised before just by personalizing the letter and the ask. Another raised increased its average gift to almost $90 simply by upgrading ask amounts!

It isn’t magic. It’s marketing. It’s using modern mail technology to replace outmoded though well-meaning volunteers.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-volunteer. In fact, I’m strongly pro-volunteer. I just believe in using volunteers in ways that make sense for both the volunteers and the organization and the community.

There are, after all, things that a machine just can’t do. Like being human: Manning hot lines…consoling crime victims…counseling rape victims…hugging and clothing the newly homeless…feeding the hungry…providing hope and stability for those who need it the most.

Tradition is good up to a point. And you reached that tipping point some time ago.

It’s time to put your uniquely wonderful volunteers to work doing the work they can best do: serving the community your non-profit was commissioned to serve.

Self-sufficiency is fine.

Being a hero is even better.

Don’t get Rooked: How to pay less for Postage

Every day someone asks me if I know strategies and techniques to reduce postage. And yes, I do. Lots of them.

But no, there is no “one solution fits all” answer. Getting a mailer to the optimal postage rate (please note I didn’t say “lowest!” rate—the highest rate may really be your lowest cost) is like playing three-dimensional chess.

A chess board is a simple black and red checkerboard pattern. It’s how you move those pieces to get to your goal that makes the game challenging.

Using postage regulations to your advantage is like playing that chess game.

To give you a strategy that will work for you (and generate an accurate postage estimate), I have to weigh your package size, weight and thickness; the distribution of your mailing list; the quantity you want to mail; and the delivery date you’ve got to have. I need to know if you are a for-profit, a non-profit, or running for elective office, as different rules and strategies apply.

Remember: Some chess pieces can move one square in any direction; some move only diagonally. Knowing which to move and when to move wins or loses games.

For instance, in Standard mail there are 27 postage rates for a letter. Even First Class Presort has 5 rates for that same letter. Throw in lumpy mail, thick mail, non-flexible mail, postcards and periodicals and you can see just how many variables I have to measure to get to your answer.

There’s one thing that is not variable, though. Unless you’re mailing a gold-leafed invitation wrapped around an original photograph by Annie Liebowitz, addressed with calligraphy by Zhang Dawo, postage will probably be the most expensive aspect of your direct marketing.

While every technique will not work for everybody—remember, a pawn and a rook can’t move the same way—here are 10 Tips to help you reduce that not inconsiderable postage outlay:

1. Clean your data. For every bad address you get off your datafile, you’ll save printing and postage. You’ll also increase your response rate, but that’s a different story. Data cleaning starts with NCOA, then goes into internal de-duping (look for identical names and identical addresses), running it against deceased data.

If you have the time and will be mailing multiple times, consider getting ACS—Address Correction Service. It will take you several weeks to apply, but will mean that we can use intelligent barcodes for you in the future (that’s another story, too) so you can track your mail in the postage system, AND you’ll be able to electronically get back corrected addresses for FREE.

2. Presort. You’ll save about .10 per letter at First Class Presort rates and twice that at Standard and about 30 cents per letter at Non-Profit rates. Yes, you can have a live stamp in any of these classes.

Of course, we have to NCOA (run your data through National Change of Address software) then presort, and sort/tie/tray, so some of your advantage will be eaten up with post office-required processing steps.

At small quantities—and that depends on the piece you are mailing and the destination address—presorting can actually cost you more than if you mailed straight First Class. Be sure you know the ins and outs of the postal regs before you reflexively say “Standard!”

Standard is not always cheaper and it is almost always slower. Unless you’re running for political office, in which case I’d suggest you mail at Standard Red Tag Political rate. You’ll get Standard postage rates but First Class delivery.

3. Mail Smaller. Flats—pieces larger than 6-1/8 x 11-1/2” cost more to mail. Of course, they stand out in the mailbox, so they have more visible. But that visibility has a price.

Postcards can be as small as 3.5x5 or as large as 6x11. Depending on the size of your postcard, the distribution of your list, and the needs to get it delivered fast, you may do better mailing at First Class, First Class Presort or Standard. Ask us to do an analysis for you.

4. Mail lighter. Keep your mail below 1 ounce in weight if you are mailing at First Class or First Class Presort. If you opt to mail at Standard or Non-Profit rates, you can mail 3.3 ounces for the basic rates. Hence, if you know your mailing piece is a heavyweight, reconsider mailing at First Class.

And of course, if lower postage is your thing, keep your piece thinner than ¼ inch.

5. Mail more. Higher mail volumes typically can reduce per-piece production—and often postage—costs. But not always. It depends on the distribution of your list.

6. Mail in highly concentrated areas. It’s easier for the post office to deliver mail that is highly concentrated; they reward mailers with lower postage rates. The optimal low rate is CRRT—Carrier Route—where the carrier delivers one piece to every address on his route.

7. Be sure your mail is automation compatible. Mail that is too stiff (or not stiff enough) or “lumpy” or square or outside aspect ratio rules or too highly reflective or with insufficient contrast between address and background or otherwise non-machineable will cost you money. Not sure about your mailing? Call us! We will help you figure it out :)

8. Be sure your mailing panel meets USPS requirements. The USPS just changed addressing requirements for self-mailers, newsletters and flats. Put the address panel in the wrong orientation and you’ll pay 10 cents more in postage. Be sure to check USPS design and folding requirements before you put ink to paper.

9. Comingle. If you’re mailing more than 25,000 pieces at a presort rate (ie First Class Presort, Standard or Non-Profit) you may find that using a comingler can save you postage.

10. Dropship. Mail going to a single, specific destination can often save time and $$ by being dropshipped to the delivery point SCF or BMC.

It works this way: We prepare the mail. We then take it to the postal facility where it is entered into the mailstream. But instead of being released into the mailstream at that point, it is put back on our truck with paperwork that says the postage has been paid and the mail passed postal inspection. We then drive the mail (or hire a long distance trucker to drive the mail) to the destination SCF or BMC. The savings per piece: approximately 4.3 cents. Hence, to save on postage, the cost of the shipping must be less than the postal savings.

It’s not just about postal savings, however. Dropshipping can cut a week or more off delivery time—even as it is saving $$. If time and $$ are both important to you, then you should be discussing dropshipping with us.

Like chess, minimizing postage is a game of strategy and nuance. Knowing these 10 tips will put you way ahead of your competition, but be sure to check with your local Mailing Requirements office and/or us for details specific to your own project.

Finally, work with us! We have your interests and needs in mind. We will help you make the right financial decision for your specific project.

And if someone tells you that the job can print and mail for less than the cost of published postage rates, run for the door. They are not your friend. They have you in Checkmate and you don’t know it yet.

Gotta love NCOA

You can’t live with it. And you can’t mail without it.

I have to admit: We’re good do-bees. When the USPS says thou shalt NCOA all addresses before you mail, that’s what we do. But what is it really doing for our clients?

NCOA—National Change of Address—checks the validity of addresses on a datafile. It answers the questions (1) is the address accurate? and (2) does that individual/business still reside there?

OK. What constitutes an “accurate address”? NCOA gives more than 40 reasons why an address can fail. Some are fatal like a state abbreviated AM (what the heck is that?)…some are mere inconveniences like “Street” instead of “St”…and most errors are somewhere in the middle.

If you’re like most clients, once you get over the shock of potentially having 40 blunders in three simple lines of type, you start to determine how many precious records have fatal flaws…how many addresses are readily fixable (and who are you going to assign to do the heavy lifting)...and how many do you throw the dice on and “takes your chances.”

After you’re over that emotional and logistical hurdle, things get easier. NCOA now tells you if the intended recipient still resides there.

Sounds pretty black-and-white, doesn’t it: Yes, he does or No, he doesn’t. But of course it’s more complicated than that.

IF the person has moved within the US and IF the person has given the USPS a forwarding address and IF the address is typed accurately (human error creates a lot of bad data), then NCOA will tell you where to find that person. Maybe.

IF he’s a college student and has left home to study, maybe you can find him. IF he’s moved out and she’s still in the home, then maybe NCOA can track him down. IF he’s moved to Heavenly Acres Cemetery, then he’s probably left no forwarding address.

That’s a lot of “ifs.”

So you clean up the data you can, expunge the records you must, and do the mailing.

That’s exactly what our client, Jane, did. Only she put an endorsement line on her envelopes, requesting the post office to return all undeliverable mail.

Now Jane has six mail tubs of envelopes with USPS-affixed yellow stickies proclaiming No such address …Undeliverable as addressed … No Forwarding address and the like.

These addresses had all passed through the rigors of NCOA just days before. Yet a large percentage of the mail was clearly undeliverable.

We were commiserating over lunch about the problem.

“How long does it take to get an address change into the NCOA datafile?” she asked me.

“How can an address pass NCOA on Monday and be undeliverable on Friday?”

“Does a sticker that reads ‘Undeliverable as addressed’ really mean that? Or did the harried clerk pick a sticker at random and slap it on my letter? I’m pretty sure this letter got to the recipient before. What gives?”

Frankly, we don’t know what gives, so we called our regional postal authority to answer some of Jane’s many questions. Here’s what we learned:

* It takes 3-4 days to get an address change listed in the NCOA if someone fills out and mails the yellow address forwarding forms found at every post office.

* It takes about one hour and $1 if the person submits the information online. (The USPS sends a confirming letter—hence the $1 fee.)

* Sticker fatigue? Well, maybe. We looked at the returned envelopes and saw what looked to be good addresses. Each envelope had been read by a postal scanner to check for why the address was in error, and that information was compared to The Big Database in the Sky.

Address order could have caused some of the come-backs. Sometimes the address was 123 Apple Ave T1 (apartment T1) which is the correct addressing format. Sometimes the address was T1 123 Apple Avenue. That second presentation could have confused the smartest USPS computer.

* A couple of the envelopes had someone’s nickname. The computer doesn’t know that Robert is also called Bob, Rob, Bobbie and Robbie. Nicknames can lead to computer confusion.

* And since so many of Jane’s returns were from college students, we can assume that they didn’t bother to register when they changed housing each semester. Records older than 24 months can make the computer reject an address, too.

* Finally, the ubiquitous response: human error. Not infrequently, the USPS hardcopy change of address form is not readable. The USPS keypunchers are left to take educated guesses on spelling. Guesses lead to inevitable errors. Similarly, people who enter their information online make typing errors. Those errors can result in rejected mail later.

Want to check an address? The USPS suggests you to go their website: www.USPS.com. In the upper left corner click on Zip Code look up. Follow the steps and you’ll find out why the USPS computers have rejected that specific address. Maybe.

Whew! Now Jane’s got her answers. But she’s still got six mail tubs to sort through, ensuring her clerk will have job security for weeks.

I repeat: Gotta love NCOA. You can’t live with it and you can’t mail without it.

Get a USPS Endorsement

First a truth-in-advertising confession: Anyone can get an endorsement from the post office.

No, a postal endorsement is not a letter of recommendation that adds glowing creds to your resume. But it does sound important, doesn’t it?

An endorsement is a line of type under the return address that instructs the letter carrier to do something specific with the mail piece should the intended recipient not live there anymore.

In today’s economy, 40% of people moving in this country are sneaking out in the dead of night to avoid creditors. Not surprisingly, they fail to report their new location to the post office. And because they don’t report their whereabouts, USPS NCOA (National Change of Address) processing can’t find them.

So what’s a mailer to do? You don’t want to mail to people who have skipped town. After all, they are no longer the good prospects you had hoped they would be.

Self-protective act #1 is to run an NCOA on your data before you mail it. NCOA casts a wide net, and you’ll catch most—but not all—of your bad addresses.

Self-protective act #2 is using a postal endorsement to catch the people who fell through the NCOA safety net.

One endorsement reads ‘RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED.’ This instructs the postman to return the original mail piece to you. There will probably be a yellow sticker on it with an (not The) explanation. “Moved. Left no Forwarding Address”…“Addressee Unknown”…“Bad Address” etc. Then you remove the name from your mailing list as they are gone. Skeedaddled. Voted with their feet. Vamoosed.

If you’re lucky, they’ll show up another day, another time. But for today, they are probably laying low at the nearest KOA kampground.

Another endorsement reads ‘FORWARDING SERVICE REQUESTED.’ This wording instructs the postman to make a photocopy of the piece—with the yellow sticker affixed to it. He forwards the mail if he can and returns the photocopy to you.

The theory behind this processing is that your info gets to your recipient faster, and you can correct your data for your next mailing.

There are three major flaws with this thinking:

#1. Your intended recipient is gone. He hasn’t left a forwarding address. There simply is no one and no where to forward that letter to.

#2. Some idiot at the post office regularly puts the yellow corrective label directly over the addressee’s name and address. So even if you can read the corrected address, you can’t tell whose address is being corrected.

#3. The copier machine badly needs a new toner cartridge and you can’t read the information that the post office is so helpfully sending to you anyway.

You’ve probably guessed that this service has a price tag. However, if you’re mailing at First Class, your cost per piece returned is FREE. You saw it right: your cost is Zippo. Nada. If your piece weighs less than one ounce.

However, if you’re mailing that same piece at Standard or non-Profit rates, your cost per piece returned is $1.09.

And while $1.09 sounds rather high, if you consider the cost of not mailing to this non-existent person again and again with all that incumbent expense, it becomes much more reasonable.

Check with your post office to ensure you’re getting exactly the endorsement you want. And while you’re at it, check on other critical USPS requirements for endorsement lines including point size, spacing, and positioning.

Bottom line: a USPS endorsement sounds impressive, but it won’t help your resume at all. It can, however, help your mailing list stay up-to-date.

After all, keeping your list clean really is important when every penny counts.

Get Personal. Get Results. (Part 3 of 4)

Get Personal. Get Results. (Part 3 of 4)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Getting Personal With Housefiles

If direct marketing prospecting is a lot like dating as you sort out whom to approach and how to approach them, direct marketing housefile work is doubly difficult. It’s like being married.

You think you know what makes the person tick…and then voila’…he changes. Yesterday he liked meat and potatoes, followed up with cigars and cognac. Today he is tofu and salads, followed up with spring water and a sprig of mint.

But before we agree to change and grow old together, let’s define where we start the journey. If marriages start at the altar, a housefile starts to build when a prospect says “I do” to your proposal to buy/donate/subscribe, etc.

Hence a housefile is a list of people who like what you do and have supported you. Your organization/company owns and (hopefully) maintains this list. These are people who have donated to your cause, bought from your company, attended your events, subscribed to your publication, joined your organization, or in some way have entered into your sphere. You own these names.

Since you own these names, you’ve got more at stake here. They should be your “bread and butter” since they’ve already opted in at least once before. When you’ve got something to pitch, these should be you’re A#1 go-to-guys. They should know who you are, what you do, and why you are contacting them.

Or maybe not.

You have been sending them marketing pieces that explain your position. Right? You have been asking them to renew. Right again?

Despite your best efforts, brilliant copy and compelling graphics, your housefile returns have been dwindling of late, and you can’t figure out why. (This is the moment when that beef-loving, cognac-sipping spouse says “You’ve totally misunderstood me!”)

But before that ugly wake-up call, consider that maybe you don’t know who they are, why they are on your list or how you should contact them. If this is the case, it is a huge opportunity for you to research your own base so you can get personal with them to the best effect.

In days of yore, you would keep contacting your housefile with the same message over and over again. They would continue to support you, or—in 20% of the typical housefile each year—they would vote with their feet, and leave you behind.

Today there is a lot more competition for their attention. You’ve got to be better—smarter!—than the competition. Unless you know more about who is on your housefile, unless you know what they value, what they believe and think, you may be pitching the wrong message to them.

Maybe their first foray with your company was a fluke or a momentary aberration. (That spray-on hair-in-a-can surely did look great at 2:00 in the morning!) But maybe it was really part of their core values. (They are among the 400,000 balding men in this country who are desperate to find a “cure.”)

You keep trying to sell more hair-in-a-can to the poor guy. But you’re totally missing the deeper need.

Today, you can run your housefile through data filters. You can understand your folks better, and determine what compels them. Then you can understand how to address them.

For instance, a very basic filter is an NCOA—National Change of Address. NCOA runs your data through the most current USPS-approved data to ascertain if your address of record is good, and if your person still lives there.

If there is a problem with the address—(and NCOA will give you almost 40 reasons why an address can fail. Some are fatal, some are merely inconvenient)—NCOA will let you know. If your addressee has moved, NCOA will tell you where they’ve moved if USPS knows. If a business has closed, NCOA will tell you.

You can go a little deeper by running your data against Social Security data. Often “Forwarding Address Unknown” means your party has taken up permanent residence in Heavenly Acres. Running your data against Social Security data will tell you. If he is deceased, there is no point in keeping him on your housefile. The likelihood of him purchasing/donating/subscribing to you any more is nil. He is truly deadwood.

There are other filters, too, that might be invaluable to you. If there’s a possibility your folks may have found their way to a long-term, involuntary residence at Leavenworth, then run your data against prison data.

If knowing the likely net worth or annual income of individuals on your housefile is important to you, we can find out.

If you need to know his hobbies, interests, politics, marital status, etc, the information is there for you.

If knowing that he is losing his hair because he has cancer and is likely in chemotherapy, you can find that out, too. This information is available. For a price.

If you do nothing to find out about your housefile, you’re likely to lose 20% of them each year to moving, changes in their financial situation, and changing interests/motivations.

If you proactively try to learn something about them, you can keep more of them on your active roster because you can address your marketing materials to them specifically, thus building and reinforcing the relationship that you need to have with your housefile.

Here is how several of our clients have used personalization technologies to improve their response rates:

Case Study #1. This non-profit organization helping third world orphans had not cleaned its housefile in over 50 years. Simply by doing a merge/purge to remove duplicate records, then running those addresses through NCOA and Social Security, we were able to determine within days why their response rates were dropping even as their production costs were rising.

Some donors were in the data six times. Hence, every time the organization mailed, these donors would receive 6 messages. At best, 5 would go ignored. At worst, the donors thought the organization was wasting money. And the donors were right!

That is, the donors who were still alive.

After running 153,000 records through Social Security, we had a housefile of about 28,000 unduplicated, still living donors. Only about 18% of their housefile was viable!

The client was devastated. They were sure we had destroyed their fundraising base. When we mailed it, we found something else instead. Printing, production and postage costs plummeted; and return rates skyrocketed. Their ROI improved instantaneously.

But wait! There was more! We asked the client to make a leap of faith by changing their packaging, too.

Instead of mailing one-size-fits-all generic letters with generic asks in window envelopes, we opted for the more expensive but vastly more productive approach of sending personalized letters in closed face envelopes. And of course, we used real stamps.

Hence instead of asking everybody for a gift of $25, $50, $100 or Other $____, we asked for donations commensurate with previous donating history. We also asked donors to increase their giving level, using a simple algorithm. $5 givers were asked to give $5 or upgrade to $7.50 or $10; $100 donors were asked to give $100, $150, $200.

We also learned a little something about each person on the file, so we could personalize the solicitation specifically to that recipient. Was he donating because he was a foster parent to one of the orphans? We mentioned the child by name. Had she visited the orphanage in 2005? We mentioned her visit. Have they been giving since 1995? We mentioned that little fact, too.

The results were astounding. $50 donors upgraded to $100 donors. Multi-givers became the rule, not the exception. Donors responded with personal notes, thanking the organization for the opportunity to help the children.

Bottom line: Several factors played into this success story.
#1- list maintenance.
#2- researching and using information about the donor in his individual letter.
#3- using personalization technology like laser-personalized letters and match mailings (where the recipient’s name and address on the envelope match the name and address on the letter) to create a truly one-on-one experience for each donor.

Case Study #2. A political client sent a solicitation letter to his housefile. In that individually personalized letter, the candidate reiterated his position on various issues, and he thanked each donor for his/her previous gift of $x. He enclosed a small, four-color photograph of himself, his wife, their children and their dog in front of their home. Scrawled across the lower right corner of the picture was the personalized message in blue handwriting, “Dear Joe and Mary, your gift of $x meant the world to Joanne and me. Thank you.” It was “signed” by the candidate.

A simple thank you scrawled on a photo. It didn’t cost much, but the personalized message got attention in a big way.

VDP—Variable Data Printing—made the photo and the message a simple one-step process. Matching the photo to the letter to the reply to the envelope, made it 4-way match mail. It was a personalization tour de force.

Within days, gifts were pouring in. And so were photos of Joe, Mary and their family. By the time the last photo arrived, the staff had wallpapered a room with photos of their supporters, and the campaign went on to victory.

Several factors working together created this success story:

#1- The politician realized that people like to be thanked. And if he can thank them citing their previous gift, it’s even better! It helped reinforce the relationship that is at the heart of every housefile.
#2- Sending the photo of his family made this man real to his audience.
#3- Adding the personal thank you—naming the recipient by name, and citing his specific gift amount—locked in the relationship.

Case Study #3. Another political candidate we helped was running in an ethnically diverse district. There were pockets of Korean speakers; Arabic speakers; Spanish speakers, Vietnamese speakers.

So we ran an ethnicity filter against the district voter file and found out who likely spoke Korean, Arabic, Spanish, or Vietnamese as their first language.

We then prepared materials for each group using appropriate photographs, graphics and language for each. We had skilled translators change the original message in English into the various language groups, and we laser personalized letters to these voters explaining why they should vote for this candidate.

Each voter got several colorful packets of material written in his native language.

For many of these voters, this may have been their first American election. It set a high bar for future efforts.

What does this mean to you?

We'll address that issue in Part IV of this series.

Get Personal. Get Results. (Part 3 of 4) Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

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Dear upset client...

Dear Upset Client,

I've gotten your envelope with the returned mail pieces.

Yes, we did run NCOA (National Change of Address software) against your data before we mailed the job for you. You thought it was unnecessary, but we insisted. “It’s my list. I know them. Been mailing to them for years!” you said. But it really didn’t matter. New USPS regulations say we must run NCOA on any presorted classification of mail that includes a recipient’s name. That means First Class Presort, Standard or Non-Profit. That means you.

So we NCOA’d your data.

We corrected your bad addresses where possible. Your data was ugly, frankly, and we corrected what we could for you. You’re welcome.

Yes, we did update the recipient’s address where possible. You hadn’t cleaned your data since the flood—OK, since 1953, but that’s an eon in marketing. Even the best NCOA list only goes back 48 months. 1953 is two generations ago!

And yes, we did delete a lot of folks. Not surprisingly, a huge number of your folks are dead. Let’s see, if they started donating in 1953 at age 50, they’d be 106 today. 106-year olds just don’t donate the way they used to.

Yes, it was a surprise to us, too, that 25% of your list was deceased. Maybe that’s why they left no forwarding address. Maybe that’s why your response rates have been going down the drain of late. Maybe that’s why you’re paying more in postage and printing and production and seeing fewer dollars back each year. Go figure.

We didn’t—but could have—run your list against a list of people currently living at government expense in Leavenworth, Kansas. Knowing your database, we didn’t think that was necessary.

We differentiated for you between individual moves (ie divorces, going away to school, moving to a nursing home, etc) and family moves and did as you directed us to do on each one.

And yes, we eliminated the folks who had moved overseas, addresses with fatal flaws, and businesses that had closed.

We also did an internal dedupe, so that you would send only one letter to the Smith household. When we started with your data clean up, the Smiths were getting 5 letters. One to Bob and Mary Smith, one to Robert and Mary Smith, one to Robert Smith, one to Mary Smith and one to Bob Smith. Remember we told you that 40% of your list was duplicate addresses? That’s what we meant. The Smiths were getting five letters from you each time you mailed!

So we did all this clean up for you, and then we gave you your data back. Ignore what we sent you at your peril. We don’t want to go through all this with you next time. It would be like taking the same hill twice.

I’m truly sorry you are disappointed that your list went from 136,000 people to 28,000. I think you’d be glad. Instead of mailing 108,000 bad and iffy addresses, you’ll be mailing to 28,000 good ones. If those 28,000 people give like they have been giving, your response rate will skyrocket even as your costs plummet. Now that’s a win/win in my book. Sorry you don’t see it that way.

Now about those 86 bad addresses you sent me.

In 100% of the cases, the yellow stickie labels say "Unable to Forward." They do not say the address was bad--which substantiates the value of the NCOA. They say "Unable to Forward."

In this economy people are moving in the dead of night. They simply leave the key in the mailbox and drive away. It’s one way to temporarily avoid creditors. Dying is another. Both result in “Unable to Forward” stickies.

Currently, 40% of those who move do NOT send their new address info to the Post Office which means that that 40% will not be caught on an NCOA.

Please contact me in a month when your campaign is running at full tilt.

I bet those 86 records that are aggravating you today don’t look so bad then.

Thank you.


43670 Trade Center Place, Suite 150, Dulles, VA 20166
Phone: 703.996.0800 Fax: 703.996.0888 1.866.365.2858
http://www.paulandpartners.net/ sales@paulandpartners.net

Direct Mail 101 - So what is an NCOA file?

NCOA files are maintained by the Post Office. (Remember the last time you moved? Remember that yellow Post Office form you filled out with your old and new address? You intended the postal service to forward your Time Magazine properly, right? Well, they did forward your Time Magazine to you, but they also put your addresses—both old and new—into a database. And then they made that database available to mailers to confirm address accuracy.)

Upon running your housefile through the NCOA process, you are awarded a certificate. That certificate allows you to mail First Class Presort, Standard Presort, or Nonprofit Presort (NCOA certification no older than 90 days is required for all presort categories of mail) should you wish. It also shows the Post Office that you are concerned about list hygiene and doing your part to keep your list clean. Call it “good will” if you wish. More practically, it updates your file and reduces your outlay for non-deliverable packages. NCOA certification is valid for 90 days.

Upsides: It’s fast: an expedited NOCA can happen in a couple of hours. And it’s cheap. NCOA processing will also catch incomplete addresses (i.e. missing apartment/suite numbers) or mismatches between states and zips, or incorrect addresses (no such street number). It will tell you if someone has moved, and if so what their new address is. It will tell you if someone has moved overseas (no luck on that address, though). And it will tell you if the person is gone with no forwarding address (best to check Heavenly Acres for current residence status). So you can fix your list and get in the mail faster with cleaner information. That means more positive results faster.

Downsides: Did your recipient fill out his/her yellow moving form legibly? If the input keypuncher can’t read it, the entry may be wrong in the database. Mail could be misdirected. So there is a small element of human error involved. And about those incomplete or incorrect addresses: NCOA processing probably can’t fix them for you. It can pinpoint problems, but you have to make the fix later.

Also, an NCOA of a company file can not pinpoint if your specific recipient is still employed in his/her position; it can only tell you if the company address is still viable.

Bottom line: For speed, accuracy, cost and getting your corrected information back in a timely fashion, no other list cleaning technique equals an NCOA.

Direct mail marketing is tough enough. Mailing to people who no longer live where you think they live only makes it harder and more expensive.

Make it easier on yourself—and your organization’s pocketbook. Keep your data clean, eliminate duplicates and kill the “deadwood.” But get a professional like Paul & Partners to guide you. Professional help costs nothing more than the NCOA fee. But get that NCOA done. You’ll be surprised at how much your return rates will improve on your next mailing! Best yet: your boss will think you’re a genius.

Now that’s a win-win!

43670 Trade Center Place, Suite 150, Dulles, VA 20166
Phone: 703.996.0800 Fax: 703.996.0888
http://www.paulandpartners.net/ travis.boaz@paulandpartners

Our Services Include: mailing services, bulk mailing services, direct mailing service, printing and mailing services, mass mailing services, buy mailing lists, mailing lists, buy mailing list, mailing list service, mailing list, direct mail mailing list, direct mail post cards, direct mail house, direct mail programs, direct mail printers, direct mail solutions, direct mail cost, direct mail advertising services, direct mail post card, direct mail marketing services, direct mail companies, direct mail postcards, direct mail advertising, direct mail marketing, direct mail

CLEAN UP YOUR NEXT MAILING!

Clean your housefile…Clean up on your next mailing!

Anyone who has studied Direct Mail 101 understands that mailing to a clean list is critical to the success of a project. A clean list reduces printing, production and postage costs…even as it increases percentage return.

Clean up your housefile and you’ll look like a marketing genius. I guarantee it.

Interested?

Consider this: 20% of the US population moves each year. Some marry and merge households; some divorce and split households; some die; some just move away. Thus consumer files can go stale quickly.

Or this: 20% of small businesses fail each year, and a somewhat smaller number of larger companies merge, get bought out, or move—sometimes “off shore.” Furthermore, the specific individual you want to target may be downsized or promoted, on maternity or military leave, retired or replaced. Organizations mailing into the government have an even greater challenge, due to personnel turnover.

Or this: maybe you are your own worst enemy. Maybe you have people listed multiple times on your datafile. Don’t deny it! I’ve seen databases just like yours. Duplicates everywhere. And that means wasted money…and upset recipients.

It is hard enough to find people who are interested in your message…people who are willing to buy from your company or donate to your cause. Staying in touch with them can be just as difficult.

You probably intuitively know that it is less expensive to keep customers or contributors than to replace them. Prospecting is expensive. And it rarely breaks even. So it only makes practical sense to periodically clean your housefile.

Yet so many direct mailers don’t take that one simple—and inexpensive—step. Instead, they watch as their list slowly atrophies and their return rates plunge. And they wonder what’s wrong.

The answer is simple: poor list hygiene. Cleaning a list is simply the best way to keep your customers and donors active and keep your prospecting costs down.

And list hygiene needn’t be a laborious process. There are several ways to clean your housefile.

The first method is to call everyone on your list before you mail to them. While your accuracy will be assured, you will never get anything into the mail because you’ll always be on the phone. Unless you have a staff of thousands with nothing better to do, try another technique.

A second method is to mail everything First Class. It’s effective: the Post Office will forward your information to your intended recipient. Voila’! Prime mission accomplished! But at a price. You are paying dearly for your postage, your intended recipient may get a package that has been handled so many times it is no longer readable and you may not get back needed corrections in a timely fashion.

A third solution is to use endorsement lines (such as “Address Forwarding Requested.”) Depending on the endorsement you select, you will get predictable results. In one instance your mailing will be forwarded to your recipient—new yellow stickers and accusatory pointing finger stamps and all—and you get a photocopy. In another instance, the package comes back to you with the correct address (if known) noted so you can send out a fresh piece. But again there are downsides. Sometimes you can’t read the photocopied forms. They are too light or have a sticker over a crucial piece of information. If you get the piece back for remailing, then you’re paying twice for postage. It can take weeks or months to get your information back. And, unless you’re mailing First Class, you have to pay a price for this service—but only on the pieces returned. So using endorsement lines can be expensive.

A fourth method is to NCOA your file before you mail. NCOA—or National Change of Address—is a software solution to updating your datafile. An NCOA service provider like Orion Direct can check your existing database again a Post Office master database. If an entry has changed, your database changes. It’s that simple.

Or not.

You need a provider like Paul & Partners that can help guide your list through this process. The list has to be modified to NCOA format...then run against the NCOA list...then returned to your native format. You truly need a professional like Paul & Partners on your side. It will make your life--and your list--so much happier.

So what is an NCOA file?

NCOA files are maintained by the Post Office. (Remember the last time you moved? Remember that yellow Post Office form you filled out with your old and new address? You intended the postal service to forward your Time Magazine properly, right? Well, they did forward your Time Magazine to you, but they also put your addresses—both old and new—into a database. And then they made that database available to mailers to confirm address accuracy.)

Upon running your housefile through the NCOA process, you are awarded a certificate. That certificate allows you to mail First Class Presort, Standard Presort, or Nonprofit Presort (NCOA certification no older than 90 days is required for all presort categories of mail) should you wish. It also shows the Post Office that you are concerned about list hygiene and doing your part to keep your list clean. Call it “good will” if you wish. More practically, it updates your file and reduces your outlay for non-deliverable packages. NCOA certification is valid for 90 days.

Upsides: It’s fast: an expedited NOCA can happen in a couple of hours. And it’s cheap. NCOA processing will also catch incomplete addresses (i.e. missing apartment/suite numbers) or mismatches between states and zips, or incorrect addresses (no such street number). It will tell you if someone has moved, and if so what their new address is. It will tell you if someone has moved overseas (no luck on that address, though). And it will tell you if the person is gone with no forwarding address (best to check Heavenly Acres for current residence status). So you can fix your list and get in the mail faster with cleaner information. That means more positive results faster.

Downsides: Did your recipient fill out his/her yellow moving form legibly? If the input keypuncher can’t read it, the entry may be wrong in the database. Mail could be misdirected. So there is a small element of human error involved. And about those incomplete or incorrect addresses: NCOA processing probably can’t fix them for you. It can pinpoint problems, but you have to make the fix later.

Also, an NCOA of a company file can not pinpoint if your specific recipient is still employed in his/her position; it can only tell you if the company address is still viable.

Bottom line: For speed, accuracy, cost and getting your corrected information back in a timely fashion, no other list cleaning technique equals an NCOA.

Direct mail marketing is tough enough. Mailing to people who no longer live where you think they live only makes it harder and more expensive.

Make it easier on yourself—and your organization’s pocketbook. Keep your data clean, eliminate duplicates and kill the “deadwood.” But get a professional like Paul & Partners to guide you. Professional help costs nothing more than the NCOA fee. But get that NCOA done. You’ll be surprised at how much your return rates will improve on your next mailing! Best yet: your boss will think you’re a genius.

Now that’s a win-win!

43670 Trade Center Place, Suite 150, Dulles, VA 20166

Phone: 703.996.0800 Fax: 703.996.0888

http://www.paulandpartners.net/ travis.boaz@paulandpartners

Our Services Include: mailing services, bulk mailing services, direct mailing service, printing and mailing services, mass mailing services, buy mailing lists, mailing lists, buy mailing list, mailing list service, mailing list, direct mail mailing list, direct mail post cards, direct mail house, direct mail programs, direct mail printers, direct mail solutions, direct mail cost, direct mail advertising services, direct mail post card, direct mail marketing services, direct mail companies, direct mail postcards, direct mail advertising, direct mail marketing, direct mail