Broker’s Roundtable: USPS Summer Sale Tips

Welcome to Broker’s Roundtable, a new weekly feature in Direct Listline. Every month, we’ll select a different panel of list brokerage professionals. Then each week for that month, they’ll tackle questions about pertinent industry issues and offer tips for mailers.

Our first panel features Claire Carpenter of Carney Direct, Amy Benicewicz of ListBargains.com, Paul Kolars of Trimax Direct and Mark Hammar of Total Data Solutions. (Would you like to be considered to be a member of our Roundtable? Contact Larry Riggs at [email protected])

This week, we asked the Roundtable to share tips for how mailers can take advantage of the U.S. Postal Service’s summer postage sale. Take it away, brokers:

Claire Carpenter, list broker, Carney Direct
First, a mailer needs to know whether they are eligible for the 2010 summer sale. To be eligible, a mailer had to mail at least 350,000 Standard mail letters or flats between July 1 and Sept.30, 2009. Mailers still want to make sure they don’t jeopardize the “freshness” of the names being rented and that they keep ROI in the forefront of all their plans. And this is a perfect time to test a multichannel campaign. With your postal costs being a 1/3 of what they are traditionally, it’s a great time to use the savings towards developing a strong e-mail strategy as a follow up to your mailings.

Amy Benicewicz, president, ListBargains.com
With a 30% rebate available to eligible mailers, now is the time to start planning so you can take advantage of this rare postal savings opportunity. If you mailed enough last summer to receive an invitation from the USPS to participate, take a look at your mail plans for the balance of your budget period and calendar year and plan accordingly. In order to qualify, you will need to increase your mail volume from the previous year. This cannot be done by moving some of your usual mail plans into the summer. So, you need to figure out if mailing during the summer slow season helped increase results for you last year. For smaller mailers who have not yet qualified for the summer postage sale, now is the time to find out how much you have to put in the mail this summer in order to qualify for future summer sale discounts. If you are planning on growing your business, this is an opportunity that you should consider when planning your mailing plans and your media budgets.

Paul Kolars, partner, Trimax Direct
I think mailers taking advantage of this sale would be best served by making sure their list selections are as targeted as can be and that their offer is worthwhile. A mailer that upped their quantity by almost 1 million names during last year’s sale was disappointed with the results. So even though their in-the-mail costs may have been less by taking advantage of a postal discount, their increased quantity most likely eliminated any savings that could have been realized. This could have been a list concern, timing dynamic or offer issue, but mailing more at a lower postal rate doesn’t automatically ensure success of the campaign.

Mark Hammar, president, Total Data Solutions
This is a great opportunity, so the tip might seem obvious but a mailer should really try to qualify for this. The USPS summer postage sale is for more than 350,000 pieces at a minimum and runs from July 1 to the end of September. Keeping this in mind, any of the large jobs that mailers have scheduled for the second quarter and fourth quarter should be carefully considered to be reworked to take advantage during this summer promotion. Moreover, any mailer that is within, say, 100,000 mail pieces short of reaching the 350,000 ought to consider a strategy to bump up their volume. If 100% of the scheduled mailing was to their own customer base, it is a great time to start testing new lists. If your peak sales are not in this quarter, it is still a window of opportunity to do some branding.

Would you like to be part of a future Broker’s Roundtable? E-mail [email protected]