The Check Is the Mail
THROUGH A solicitation effort printed onto a double postcard refund check statement, Publishers Clearing House not only realized a cost savings, but opened up a virtually no-cost direct response mail channel.
During an average year, the Port Washington, NY direct marketer mails out more than 1 million refund checks, mostly to customers who have either overpaid or are due money for a returned product. The checks are sent out via first class mail, which means the company is paying for 1 million 32-cent stamps and 1 million envelopes. Consumer were receiving 1 million checks attached to 1 million statements, and most of the latter were likely winding up as landfill.
A double postcard designed by Solutran Customized Payment Solutions in Plymouth, MN allowed the refund check to be laser-printed onto the mailer. The format gave PCH a mailing cost savings, and the “statement” part of the mailer had a postpaid business reply mailer on one side and space for a customized message on the other.
“You can put whatever you want on it,” says Solutran president Joseph F. Keller. “There is a tremendous amount of data-gathering potential [through surveys]. You can even change it within a print run.”
PCH’s first significant test was a 100,000-piece sample. Refund checks were sent out along with an offer to join PCH’s Travel Continuity Video Club. Once check recipients detached their refund, they were left holding an offer to enroll in the program and receive a free Canada train-ride video.
PCH controller Ted Kasnicki had initially embraced the program as a cost-savings measure. The 2%-plus response rate-for what was admittedly not the strongest offer to make to American consumers-was “gravy,” he said. (PCH did not release the number of respondents converted into full-fledged continuity program participants.)
Future offers may be segmented according to geography, interest and nature of the initial purchase. Kasnicki acknowledges that in some cases where the recipient of the refund was especially vitriolic, PCH might not make any offer whatsoever.
Buoyed by the success of the test, PCH plans to completely convert its refund check mailings to the double postcard by mid-October.
