Published September 2002

Direct mail can have direct effect on bottom line

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

Real estate agent Barb Lamoureux is a big believer in direct mail. Every year, she sends out about 50,000 pieces of the stuff to the north Everett community, a neighborhood she works in day in and day out.

With the help of a mailing service, the Everett native sends out newsletters and postcards concerning her business, her life and her community. These mailings make it into the homes of people she wants to do business with, introducing her to thousands of neighbors and potential customers at a time.

It’s a strategy that has paid off, the Windermere Realtor said.

“People like to do business with people they know, and because I can’t be in everybody’s houses, my face can be,” Lamoureux said. “It’s given me huge name recognition.”

Hers is not the only business that can benefit from direct mail, the U.S. Postal Service says.

In its publication “Direct Mail by the Numbers,” the agency says that direct mail can be a useful tool for businesses in terms of target marketing, revenue growth, customer service and new leads, citing that:

• Of those who receive direct mail, a survey showed that 50 percent read it immediately, and of those, 40 percent “found the information they received useful.”
• In 1997, direct-mail sales reached $421.3 billion, with sales driven by direct mail projected to increase by $8.3 billion per year through 2002.
• Businesses who use some other form of advertising can benefit by using direct mail in conjunction with that advertising. For example, a print advertisement with a bind-in direct-mail reply card “will outpull the same ad without a bind-in by up to 600 percent.”
• Studies have shown that every dollar spent on direct-mail advertising brings in $10 in sales.

The trick is to make the most out of every dollar spent, said Shirley Oberg of SOS Data Services, a Woodinville-based company that offers data-entry, database management and mailing services.

For instance, the Postal Service’s standard mail rates cost about 21 cents per piece for commercial use, with the rate decreasing even more depending on mail volume and enhanced preparation.

Because the post office has less handling to do, they pass on the savings in the form of lower rates, Oberg said.

That’s quite a bit of savings from first-class mail rates, which can cost as much as 37 cents for a single piece that is not sorted.

But preparation — making sure the pieces are of the right size and thickness, going through address certification and presorting the pieces, to name a few — can be a time-consuming process. Not to mention the cost of acquiring an annual $150 permit to mail in bulk and the one-time charge of $150 to apply for a permit imprint, or indicia, for those who don’t want the hassle of pre-canceled stamps or a postage meter.

Which is why mailing services can be a big help for businesses: cleaning up address lists, stuffing envelopes, bar-coding mail for automation purposes and presorting the pieces, among other services.

At Automated Business Services of Marysville, for example, Ron Sailer said he usually prepares mailings of 1,000 or more pieces. For clients with smaller mailings, Sailer will print labels, enabling clients to prepare mailings in-house.

At SOS, “we offer data entry to direct mail and everything in the middle,” Oberg said, noting that the preparation mailing services provide helps in terms of speedy delivery.

“We find that local mail, standard mail, goes very, very quickly the way we prepare it,” she said. “... That’s the reason for using a mail service.”

That — and the expertise that comes with shipping out thousands of pieces of mail each day.

“Keeping up with changing mail regulations also is a priority, and a number of SOS Data Services’ employees take classes to keep informed,” Oberg said.

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