Peter Kritas Mailpost

Sending parcels or any other mail is a pretty standard process in the UK; you buy the right amount of stamps for your item and away it goes, the process is familiar to millions and even sending packages via recorded delivery has become familiar to the many people that order goods online or sell goods at online auction sites such as eBay.

It is perhaps a part of this that a lot more people are beginning to send parcels abroad to international destinations too. Whether it is selling goods or sending a present to a relative or friend living abroad you will need the parcel to arrive in good time and not be delayed or worse, lost.

Sending parcels abroad can be a complicated process with the added cost but also the restrictions and other issues to contend with such as taxes and customs charges. Some people will decide not to use international parcel delivery options as they believe them to be more hassle and in business requirements this could be unfeasible.

But considering the benefits of being able to deliver to destinations wider than just the British Isles means you could expand your home business to other markets, leading to a potential increase in business and therefore money!

There are many international parcel delivery firms available that deliver to a wide range of countries, depending on where you are sending your parcel you could find that this limits your options with regards to who you can use. Once you have found a shipping service that delivers to your chosen destination then you can begin to look over the various services they offer. The range of services again may be limited due to the destination but the services will typically determine how quickly your parcel will be delivered, some international deliveries can be delivered within weeks or a few days at higher levels.

More expensive options may also have extra services such as detailed tracking and insurance so that if there are any time sensitive documents or parcels then if they are delayed for any reason they could cost you money and so insurance is advisable. Detailed tracking information is also going to help you provide an exact response to customer queries and can even be presented to your customers to prove you have dispatched their order and absolve yourself of any delivery delays.

So sending parcels internationally can be much easier than you may have imagined, using an international parcel delivery company could help your home business or send presents to friends and relatives.

Mailpost Franchise

Many self publishers, book publishers, entrepreneurs, and home-based and small business owners are in the dark about mailing list rentals — how to order targeted, direct mailing lists – say for a direct marketing campaign, what to look for, and what to beware of. And they often make a few expensive mistakes. The following tips and trade secrets will help you avoid some of these mistakes and help you make better decisions when you seek out quality mailing list services.

First of all, generally, you rent, not buy mailing lists. They remain in the ownership of the mailing list company and are usually not for sale.

Many business owners rent lists but don’t use them right away, which is a mistake. Most lists change considerably in 30 days or less. Some lists, like mailing lists of public libraries, prisons, hospitals, hospital gift shops, elementary schools, high schools, colleges, universities, daily newspapers, TV stations and radio stations will have very few changes. They are fairly stationary so not as likely to move. Bookstore lists, new age bookstores lists, organization lists, specialty lists, MLM lists and business mailing lists may have a high rate of return. To avoid a lot of returns, rent the selected lists just prior to making your mailing.

Be careful about renting any mailing list that goes to individuals: consumer mailing lists, seniors mailing lists, residential mailing lists, homeowners mailing lists and opportunity seekers mailing lists, for example. With 20% of the population moving every year you may get significant returns.

But do expect some returns. As often as we mail using lists, we always get returns (called ‘nixies’ in the trade) from the post office. People move, forwarding orders expire, people expire, post office boxes close, and businesses close their doors.

Mailing list management and upkeep is expensive. It takes a lot of time and labor for companies to compile, add to, clean and mail to their lists and other necessary maintenance. They also use expensive mailing list software programs which can have costly bugs of their own.

To help you plan ahead, before you order your mailing lists, ask when you can expect the order to arrive. This can vary considerably from company to company. Some companies can take up to two weeks or more.

Mailing lists can usually be ordered in at least three formats – peel and stick (pressure-sensitive) labels or Cheshire (18 pound, spreadsheet-size computer paper–less common these days) or on a floppy disk (used less often these days) or CD. You order peel and stick labels if they’re going to be affixed to your mailing piece by hand. Or if you know how to import the lists you can order them on CD. If your mailing house is going to do your mailing they’ll probably prefer the floppy disk or CD – check with them on this before you order.

Mailing houses used to require the Cheshire format instead of peel and stick labels before the advent of computer technology and CD ROM. They have machines that cut the printed Cheshire sheets into labels and glue them to the envelopes. When ordering lists on CD, specify the format you want to use for conversion, usually ASCII comma-delimited. You must know how to import it when you get the disk though. The mailing lists will always be for one-time use only even if they’re on a CD or disk. And some mailing list companies offer instant downloads of lists.

Also if a mailing house is going to do your mailing, they may want the labels to be merged if there is more than one list, or bar-coded, which will save considerably on postage. If you can’t answer their technical questions, have your mailing house call your mailing list rental company to work out the final details.

Consider the cost to mail out your mailing piece. You might want to test a small number on the list first if you have an expensive or heavy package.

When you do mailings First Class, you’ll get returns from the post office at no additional charge. If you mail Third Class (bulk mail), you won’t get returns. They will be tossed out at the post office, UNLESS you’ve printed ‘Return Service Requested’ on the envelope. Then each return (nixie) will cost additional postage (based on first class), or ‘Change Service Requested’ (cost based on piece regardless of weight.) Make sure to check current costs with the post office because they change their rates AND rules periodically.

Always send any nixies back to your mailing list company, even if there aren’t enough for a credit, which is almost always offered. This is a good practice especially if you plan to mail again to the same list soon. They usually have a time limit as to when they can accept the nixies for credit because the lists you rented will become outdated fairly soon.

When you contract to rent a list, some mailing list companies may require a sample mailing piece. This is so the company can determine if you’re mailing a competitive or objectionable piece.

The business of mailing list rentals is based on the honor system to a degree, but this honor system also has a built-in alarm: owners protect their data by planting decoy names (seeds) in the mailing lists they rent. If a renter contracts to use a list on a one-time basis and uses it a second time, the decoy will receive the unauthorized mailing and report the misuse to the list owner. The decoys are often friends or relatives of the staff of the companies. Also, many mailing list companies employ companies that specialize in tracking or monitoring mailings to detect any misuse. Since decoys are different for each list order, the renter who abuses a contract is easy to trace.

Mailing lists are protected by copyright and trade secret law. Any violation of a list agreement is strictly upheld by the courts. Once a list rental contract has been broken, the list owner has legal recourse to sue for compensatory and punitive damages. Punitive damages could amount to as much as three times the value of the list and more.

All list owners have good reason to be so protective of their data. List rental is a multibillion-dollar business. There are literally thousands of lists available for rental in the United States alone.

If all else fails, you can enlist the help of a mail list broker. Brokers usually collect their fees from the mailing list company. Check this out first.

In any case caveat emptor! In any case you can reap rewards handsomely from sending out fliers, press releases, press kits, review copies of books and other materials via the direct mailing lists you choose.

These tips and trade secrets should help self publishers, book publishers, entrepreneurs, home based or work-at-home and small business owners make better decisions when working with mailing lists, mailing list rentals and mailing list companies.

Mailpost Leadership

This is intended for information and shouldn’t be construed as legal advice.

In order to make money by mail, you need to have something to sell which others will want to buy. Everyone makes money by selling something of value to someone else. Some folks are content to sell “a little of themselves” one hour at a time. Others want to work for themselves and sell their own products or services to others.

Those individuals who desire to make more than just a few bucks per hour need to have their own product or service to offer to the rest of the world. This presentation was prepared for those individuals.

With the information, suggestions, and information listed in this report, you could Price It, Advertise It and Sell It!

Most of the guesswork, trial and error has been removed. This report has 21

plans and suggestions. It is NOT meant to be the “last and final authority”. It is more than enough to give you a good idea, to encourage you to get started and to begin receiving money in your mail box often. You’ll learn more as you go along. You’ll run across other offers and maybe some better deals. The best advice is: go slow, test and try every offer that appeals to you! See what works and what doesn’t. Stay with the things that produce results.

So, What can you sell to others by mail?

If you have nothing, besides yourself and your time, it is quite simple to create something to sell to others or to offer to do something for someone else that they can’t or won’t do for themselves.

What follows are IDEAS and TESTED PLANS (by others) which you can begin to advertise and sell to others by MAIL ORDER!

1. A Circular Mailing Business.

Sample Ad:

FAST CIRCULAR MAILING 3×6 and 5×8…………… 1 cent each 8-1/2×11……………… 2 cents each 1000 8-1/2x 11………… $15.00 Minimum (200 of each kind)

This is an inexpensive and easy way to begin. Offer to mail circulars (distribute them by mail) to prospective buyers. You charge a fee for this service, by asking for a set rate per week or per month or per sheet charge. (Write and request information from other advertised offers. Ask questions that you would like answers to on starting and operating this type of business. Know what is involved and know what you are doing before you begin.) If you advertise, let other companies know how much you charge to distribute their circulars.

2. Sell Packages of Mail Order Offers.

Sample ad:

QUALITY BIG MAIL! Packed with top mail order publications, discount ad rates, money making opportunities, dealership offers. FREE mailing list, FREE Big Mail Listing and much more. Everything rushed to you first-class mail for only $2.00! Order Today!

This ad shows that one company usually charges $2.00 for their Big Mail. You can offer a “BIG MAIL” for $1.00 or $2.00… Keep all the money and have this company fill your orders for free. Write the ones you like for details. Buy other “Big Mails”. Offer your own for $1.00. You make money both ways. Companies pay you to distribute their circulars… AND your customers pay you to be sent one.

Note: It is very strongly recommended that you first contact each company you are interested in doing business with prior to your placing any ads and offering any companies products to others by mail!

3. Operate a Commission Mailing Business

This is different from item 1 above, in that you are not paid a fee or collect any monies up front, to mail each circular. If you mail “Commission Circulars” for other companies, you agree to “take your cut” or commission from the orders received. This can be MUCH MORE profitable! A lot of Mail Order companies are willing to allow YOU to keep HALF the money from each order as your commission for getting the order. Usually each circular has a space for YOU to put your name on each one before you mail them out. Your name will be the only one on each. All orders will come to you. You keep your share of each order, forward the remainder onto the company that supplied that circular and they will (usually) forward the item direct to your customer for you, under your name. (This is called “dropshipping”. For Mail Order sources, you place ads which ask for “Dealerships” from such companies or look for ads which ask for “Dealers Wanted”.

4. Contact Sources to Sell Their Products

Sample ad:

Dealers Wanted. Moneymaking Plans & Ideas! Ideal home mailorder business. Up to 1300% profit. No inventory. We dropship. Send $2.00 for 64-page catalog. Dealer details and wholesale prices. Satisfaction guaranteed. ACT TODAY!

An ad like this one, is placed by a Mail Order company who are seeking dealers to sell their products. Write them and ask for all necessary details.

5. Sell Money-Making, Mail Order Plans

Sample Ad:

$10 Orders Filled Free! Easiest, most profitable mail order program yet. Get easy $10 cash sales and keep all the money yourself. Don’t wait – send now for free details now!! Rush SASE to:

Write and ask for Dealer details, or their sales aids for Commission Mailers. You may have to buy their book (or whatever they are selling) before you can offer it to others.

6. Purchase or Type Up Your Own and Sell

Short Informative Reports.

Sample Ad:

FREE REPORT$. 38 $MONEY MAKER$. Fill YOUR pockets with $CASH$, plus FREE reprint rights. Just a LSASE.

Besides selling a various list of suppliers, you can type up short, one to four page, reports on a multitude of subjects, like “Where to Get Free Advertising”, “Big Profits – Selling Information”, “How to Write Profit Pulling Sales Letters and Circulars”. You can type up other reports that you create for greater profits. Get reports Printed; Advertise; Sell It!

7. Type Up, Print and Sell Your Own Booklet or Directory.

A booklet of several pages in length is no more difficult than typing up a few reports and stapling them together. Look at this short booklet: It is a model for how to do it. Have this “camera ready” booklet printed, (minimum 50 each) and sell it to others. (You can give copies away, hoping for sales later on, from your ads that appear in this booklet.) You can even sell copies to other dealers and let them sell it as their own. You can advertise and sell quantities direct.

8. Offer a Name Listing Service.

Advertise that you will send your customer’s name to hundreds of other Mail Order companies. Charge a small fee for this service. Once you have a few hundred names of interested, paying customers, type up their names on sheets and have copies made. Advertise these as “Names of Prospective Customers”. Mail Order Dealers and other companies will pay you 3 cents, current price or MORE for each name. Sell the same names to ALL who are willing to buy them. You get PAID to accumulate names and you get PAID when you sell the names. You make money from both ends. No way you can lose on this deal! Keep advertising your listing service (charge $1 to $3 to each person to list their name). This can be a “Money Maker”!!

9. Sell Names of Mail Order Buyers by Mail.

Sample Ad:

Mailing Lists. Opportunity Seekers. Fresh Daily. On Peel & Stick Labels. These “Hot Lists” really pull. Buy direct from the source.

If you have your own names of past customers, type their names and addresses on sheets of paper or on labels. Sell them for 3 cents to 6 cents each or current prices. Or buy names from others and sell their lists to your customers. It can make money for you.

10. Start a Club and Sell Memberships To It.

What kind of club? You can start any kind of club you want. A stamp club, cooking club, pen-pal club, a writers or readers club, coupon or discount club, you name it. Each new member joining pays a fee. List all members on a roster.

11. Issue a Monthly Bulletin or Club “Newsletter”

Once you have your club going, ask for contributions of notes and news from members, including you own. Put it in a Newsletter, sell subscriptions to it. Sell it to members, for a fair monthly or yearly fee, but realize a small profit from it. Sell ad space . Members can list their wants and needs in it and it will be read by all members.

12. Offer a Typing Service.

Many people don’t know how to type or even have a typewriter. Charge so much per page… $4 to $6 or more for difficult copy. Type resumes, salesletters, college papers, reports, bulletins, circulars, instructions, copywriting, newsletters, etc. It must be sharp, clean and error free. Advertise your services in local papers and/or yellow pages.

13. Offer a Card Mailing Service.

Others may be too busy or too forgetful so you do their card mailing for them… For a Fee! Arrange in writing all details to mail their birthday, anniversary, Christmas cards, etc. for them each year. They supply the names and addresses, etc. Advertise it and let others know.

14. A Mail Forwarding Service.

Forward mail for other people. This is great if you live near some well known site. Others send you their cards and letters, you then remail them from your location, but charge them up front by the letter or a straight fee.

15. An Advice/Consultation Service.

People will be happy to pay some expert for their advice. Why give away your knowledge or wisdom? Charge people to hear your advice. This is accomplished in person, fact sheet, statistical sheet or by newsletter. Financial advice, investment advice, marriage help, crafts, building, planting and so many, many other topics. Everyone of us knows something that few others know. Charge people to learn it from you.

16. Re-writing or Ads and Sales-Circulars, etc.

A great many people don’t know how to put their thoughts and ideas into simple, every day sentences. If you know how to string words together, sell that ability to others. Re-write their ads and circulars, letters or reports or whatever. Advertise it. Charge by the hour, per item or by the inch.

Note: Send LSASE means that the advertiser needs your help to get more details to you quicker. He wants you to send a long self-addressed stamped envelope along with your letter.

17. Make Money With Your Computer

Sample Ad:

HOW TO GET RICH with your Microcomputer. SECRETS REVEALED. No experience necessary. Potential tax break! Invest in YOUR future. CASH IN ON THE $100 BILLION COMPUTER INDUSTRY. Order Book #XXXX.

Lots of people have their own computer and lots of people wish they could afford one. If you have one, rent it out, sell its abilities and make yours pay for itself. With local advertising and word of mouth you may find more work than you can handle. PLUS… receive a nice income doing something you enjoy. Visit your library or local book store for books or manuals regarding how to start up this type of business. Individuals, business persons, etc, need and will find your services very necessary.

18. Sell “Made to Order” Stamps by Mail.

Sample Ad:

RUBBER STAMPS. Made to order and stock rubber stamps. 3 lines $2.25 ppd. Additional lines 50 cents each. Signature stamps $7.00 ppd. 25 unmounted 1 line stamps $5.50 ppd. Catalog 50 cents.

This is a VERY needed and popular item to sell by mail. The cost is low and you make a nice profit per sale. Read and study ads you’ll always find in Mail Order publications. Send for their rates along with a letter asking for ways on how to get started in this type of business.

“PPd.” means the advertiser will pay all additional postage or shipping costs… And that you need not send along any extra to pay postage.

19. Sell Labels and Stickers by Mail

Sample Ad:

DESIGN LABELS. Designs created for product labels, stickers. Free details.

Again, your need to contact sources and ask for dealer details or sales aids for commission agents. Some may not want or need dealers. Some who advertise may not be the source. They may be another dealer of the source. Write and ask.

20. Start/Operate a Profitable Newsletter Home Business.

Join the smart ones who presently write simple or sophisticated styled NEWSLETTERS. If you do possess GOOD IDEAS, VALUABLE ADVICE, OPTIONS OR INFORMATION or have access to any one of these, you will find that this is all that is really needed to get you started in selling valuable information that thousands of people are looking for, and profit handsomely while doing so. Thousands of newsletters are being published covering almost any subject you can imagine. EVEN YOURS.

21. Selling Recipes.

Pick out one or several of your very best recipes. Ask Grandma or Mom to write down their very own original delicious creations. Whether from city, farm or the “old country” these unique recipes can be sold through classified ads. Rainy day money or survival money, it’s there waiting for you.

Mailpost opportunities

If you want to know whether your emails reach the recipients inbox, you will need to use a mail delivery tracking application. This software does several spam checks which is used by various email systems. When your email fails most of these checks, then it is time to find out where the problem is because only when your email pass the spam filters, it will reach the recipients’ inbox.

Spamming is today widely hated and hence, email service providers set their filters to highest possible level trying to prevent any kind of spam. While this is good for the recipients, many times the filter will disallow legitimate emails from being sent to the recipients. Without a mail delivery tracking system in place, you won’t know whether your email is in the spam folder or inbox of the recipient.

Spam monitoring is the main job of email systems because customers of those systems will not be happy when their inboxes are filled with spam emails. Even though your subscribers are interested in your newsletter and emails, they won’t receive those emails when the spam filters filter out all those emails.

You can also instruct your subscribers specifically to include your email address in their whitelist to pass spam filter. However, the subscribers who will actually do this extra step to receive every email from you are a few as compared to the total number of subscribers in your list.

Hence, with the email marketing deliverability tracking assistance, you can get some insight about the filters that will disregard your emails. Some filters will check the subject line and contents of emails for spam words. Without any reason, spam filters may consider your email as spam when you have some affiliate links in your emails. Soft bounces must be known to you because with little improvements in email marketing campaigns, you can easily find ways to pass spam filters in the most legitimate way.

Mailpost

A recent Aperture Research Institute study reported upwards of 70 percent of organizations have adopted a green initiative of some kind. While those companies should be lauded for their efforts at environmental stewardship, bad days on Wall Street and for the economy have seen some companies abandon or scale back their green initiatives as they tighten their belts. Now is the time to take a realistic look at your company’s green initiatives and ask whether or not the practices undertaken are “evergreen” – promoting not only environmental sustainability, but also sound business practices and solid return on investment so as to be sustainable in good economic conditions as well as bad.

For instance, over six million trees and more than 300 million pounds of paper are wasted each year on undeliverable-as-addressed Standard class mail, as reported by UAA Clearinghouse. It costs the Post Office over 2 billion dollars annually to process this true “junk mail”. And the cost to mailers is even more dramatic – undeliverable mail costs direct mailers over $6 billion dollars a year.

So, is Postmaster General Jack Potter’s call to reduce UAA mail by 50 percent by 2010 a green initiative designed to decrease global warming and unnecessary environmental waste? Absolutely. But it’s also a common sense business initiative that will save both the USPS® and mailers a tremendous amount of money – money better spent on job creation, product development, and effective marketing.

Here are steps 1 through 5 you can easily implement to save money as you green your mailings – reducing waste, while improving deliverability, effectiveness and response to ensure you stay in the black, even as the economy sees red.

Steps 1 – 5 for Greener Mail – from Start to Finish

Step 1: Correct it!

Annually, a little under 5 percent of the mailstream, or about 10 billion mail pieces, are undeliverable-as-addressed. The majority of these mail pieces are handled as waste, adding ten million tons to the municipal solid waste stream. By reducing undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) mail you are not only helping the environment, you’re also saving money. With the postage and cost increases, bad addresses have become more costly than ever. As such it is important for companies to correct and standardize addresses before they enter a database or CRM to help ensure they don’t waste money later on sending mail to incorrect and undeliverable addresses.

Thankfully, cleaning up addresses is easy these days. Mail preparation software is available that will reduce errors due to missing or incorrect directionals, incorrect street names, missing or incorrect suffixes, incorrect ZIP codes, and more. Make sure that the mailing software you purchase is CASS Certified. To be CASS Certified, software must pass an annual USPS test to verify and correct addresses to the ZIP + 4® level with 98percent accuracy, among other requirements. Starting in 2008, CASS(TM) processing now includes DPV and LACSLink for a greater level of accuracy. DPV confirms an address has an actual point of delivery, while LACSLink identifies and updates business and residential rural route addresses to street-style addresses.

Additionally, mail preparation software will presort and barcode your mailings, helping you qualify for the lowest postage rates and applicable discounts. Here’s how one company achieved their goals.

A college magazine publisher mailed out thousands of copies of their monthly publication but needed to find ways to cut down on their costs. They investigated and purchased mail preparation software to barcode their mailings for postal discounts. Not only did the software qualify their mailings for presort discounts resulting in thousands of dollars a year in savings, it also verified and corrected incomplete and incorrect addresses which dramatically cut down on the amount of returned mail.

Step 2: Update it!

Another culprit in the high cost of undeliverable mail is customers – they are a constantly moving target. An estimated 43 million Americans pick up and move every year. That means up to 20 percent of the people or companies in any database could have a new address – a fact that presents some pretty big hurdles to maintain quality mailings lists, and low postage and production costs.

The USPS provides postal discounts for mailers that meet Move Update standards by keeping their lists up-to-date with current addresses. Authorized methods to meet Move Update standards include: NCOALink processing, FASTforward processing (letter mail only), and Address Change of Service (ACS(TM)).

The USPS maintains a database with approximately 160 million records or 48 months of permanent address changes. It’s called the NCOALink product. You can submit your mailing list or database records to USPS approved vendors for NCOALink processing to match your addresses to the change-of-address records on file with the USPS. Since 1986 when the USPS introduced the product, NCOALink has saved mailers billions of dollars that otherwise would have been wasted in paper, postage, and labor costs.

NCOALink processing your mailing list before mailing can have a significant impact on the ROI for a direct mail campaign. Let’s take an example of a 100,000 piece mailing at bulk rate with a total cost of $0.50 per piece. For this example let’s say that the mailing will generate a 1.5 percent response rate and $50 in average sales. Let’s assume that the mail list hasn’t been NCOALink processed in the last 12 months and there is a “bad” address rate of 5percent. As bulk mail is rarely forwarded, that means that 5,000 pieces never made it to their destination. At $0.50 per piece that is a loss of $5,000 right out of the gate. Now, consider that those prospects never got the opportunity to respond to the offer. At the 1.5 percent response rate and $50 average gift threshold in this scenario, that is an additional $3,750 in potential sales lost. So, in this example, not utilizing NCOALink resulted in an $8,750 mistake. And, this isn’t an extreme example. Take a look at how outdated a database can get.

Recently, a state Republican Party recently submitted its voter lists for NCOALink change-of-address processing. Of the 3.9 million voter records processed, about 528,000 records were matched to recent movers in the USPS file – almost 14 percent of their total mailing would have been undeliverable-as-addressed without move updating.

Today some type of move update processing is required every 185 days to receive First-Class Mail® automation and presort discounts. In the USPS’ effort to continue reducing UAA by 50 percent by 2010, on November 23, 2008 new Move Update standards will take effect – shortening the minimum processing window for move update processing from 185 to 95 days and making move updating mandatory for both First-Class and Standard Mail automation and presort discounts.

In addition to making Move Updating mandatory for both First-Class and Standard discounts, the USPS has proposed enforcement penalties for mailings that are not in compliance with the new Move Update standards.

According to Business Mailers Review, the USPS will use the MERLIN® verification system to check for Move Update compliance. If there are mail pieces that are deemed noncompliant, then the entire mailing is noncompliant. As a result, the mailer could be subject to a $0.07 per mail piece penalty for every mail piece across the mailing, not just on the undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) pieces.

Such a penalty could be very costly. For instance, if a mailer delivers a 100,000 piece mailing, and the Postal Service determines that it is not Move Update compliant, the proposed penalty would be $7,000 for that noncompliant mailing.

While that figure may raise eyebrows, USPS does plan to institute a 60 or 90 day grace period, in order to allow everyone an opportunity to go back and address the issue.

Step 3: Dedupe it!

Picture this. You walk out to your mail box and discover you’ve received four solicitations from your favorite charity — one addressed using your full name; one addressed using your initials; one addressed to your spouse; and one addressed to your entire family. Why are they wasting my donation on multiple solicitations you wonder?

While receiving duplicate mailings annoys recipients, the problems it causes sending organizations are even more significant. Especially considering the average customer database contains 10 percent duplicate records. Maintaining that level of duplicate records costs companies money, reduces response rates and hurts marketing efficiency.

One way to tackle duplicate records is to provide customer incentives, such as a discount on their next purchase, for notifying the company of duplicate mailings they have received.

In addition, there are easy-to-use merge/purge software programs available, as well as data hygiene services, which can quickly dedupe your mailing list – or multiple lists. And you can dictate the type of matches you’d like to find in your database from names, addresses and city/state/ZIP structures to telephone numbers, customer numbers or email addresses.

Step 4: Suppress it!

According to the latest statistics available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2005, 659,000 people under age 65 died. Now imagine an insurance company sending out a direct mail campaign with a call to action “save 15% or more on car insurance” addressed to a young mother that had been killed two years ago in a car wreck? Ouch.

While mail that is sent to deceased persons via relatives is a fraction of the overall amount of undeliverable mail each year, it is still costly – to your bottom line and your company image. Before you mail, use a data service provider to process your mailing list and suppress names that are deceased, on the DMA’s Do-Not-Mail List, or prison inmates.

You can also create and maintain an in-house suppression file that enables customers and prospects to opt-out of your company’s mailings on a selective basis. This helps ensure lists are accurately maintained at the highest level by removing inappropriate recipients, and should result in higher response rates, as well as lower production and postage costs.

Step 5: Target it!

Being able to accurately locate your customers, best prospects and competitors is the key to any cost-effective marketing campaign. Affordable geocoding services and products are available to help you put your customers on the map.

Geocoding is the process of assigning geographic locations (latitude and longitude) to the ZIP+4(TM) level of addresses in a database to help marketers identify profitable areas for mailing and the best prospects for increased business.

One direct marketing firm uses geocoding technology to help clients that are realtors “farm a neighborhood” around a house they have sold. Once the latitude and longitude coordinates are appended to the address, the firm creates a mashup of the data with Google maps – this allows the client to see exactly where the material will be sent – down to the individual houses which their mail will be delivered.

This location intelligence and accurate geographical coordinates can help mailers develop more targeted strategies that are incredibly cost-effective by reducing mailing costs.