Ten Tips For Cutting Direct Mailing Costs

There are numerous ways to make your marketing budget go further - without compromising on effectiveness or quality

. Plan ahead and use the expert help of a reputable mailing house to enable you to achieve the highest return on investment you can for your direct mailing campaign. While some of these top tips are simply common sense others may hopefully provide food for thought...

1. Postage is number one on this list of money saving tips for a good reason; it takes a large chunk out of your direct mailing budget and so needs your urgent attention. In order to cut down on costs enlist the help of experts at a professional mailing house since they will be able to advise you about the many postage discounts offered by Royal Mail and its numerous competitors. For instance, 'Mailsort 700' is a postal service which can offer you as much as a 25% postage discount if you are mailing more than 4000 items.

2. Save money on envelopes by becoming informed about the cost implications of the various sizes of envelopes - mailing house tend to buy in bulk, saving them money and they can pass on these discounts to you; and make sure to get advice with regard to which weight of envelope will best suit your mailing requirements.

3. Mailing to your existing customers will save you a great deal of money: Bought lists are expensive. You may not have the expertise in-house in order to create your own lists; in which case you can arrange for a mailing house with expertise in this area to set up and manage your database for you. Make sure they have the right skills and experience to organise your information and - importantly - give your direct mailing house a full breakdown of the characteristics of your target market by providing them with an in-depth brief.

4. Cut down on wasted mail shots by making sure your lists are 'clean' - finding that you have mailed to people who have moved by having their mail returned R.T.S (in a two year period an estimated third of a mailing list will have changed address) is expensive: If your lists are accurate, and contain no duplicates you can get extra discounts on postage - sometimes of up to 27%.

5. If you buy in lists try to ensure that you can use the list more than once - to reduce your costs over time. Also make sure you test a new list by mailing to - say 10% of it before you buy the entire list to see how good a response you get - mailing to a million people you have never had contact with before is simply not good practice. Unfortunately testing is often- wrongly -overlooked by many direct marketing professionals when they are working to a tight budget, but testing the market is crucial to carrying out sound direct marketing campaigns.

6. Include more inserts in your mailings - placing additional materials which promote your company's offerings in with statements and invoices helps cut down on marketing costs -postage rates stay the same up to certain weights. If sending out mailings promoting one particular product or service, it pays to try cross-selling related products - by including extra leaflets your mailing can be more productive with little extra cost.

7. Plan well ahead which includes making sure you are informed about all the postage costs for planned mailing pieces. DM professionals can sometimes design and print beautiful mailing pieces, only to find out that the costs to post them take them over budget. Check with an experienced mailing house before making a final decision with the creative team regarding the design of a mailing.

8. Measure the effectiveness of all your direct marketing campaigns and work out the cost per response and cost per order - also how much money has a customer spent with you over a given period of time. Those who have spent the most with you recently are likely to be good prospects to buy again.

9. Direct marketing campaigns are prone to setbacks along the way so allow extra time to be planned in so that your mailing house has can complete the job on schedule-marketing materials will need at least a week to print and time needs to be included for delivery to and from the mailing house.; busy mailing houses have to work to tight schedules - if your materials turn up late from the printer there will be cost implications both for the mailing house and for you.

10. You no longer have to use a four colour press for printing needs - digital printing gives a good result and can be relatively cheaper and faster for smaller mailings. This method also allows for greater personalisation and better targeting.

by: David Amor

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