Direct mail is a traditional marketing channel that can achieve impressive results. Although you may think the design, printing and materials are the most costly aspect of direct mail, it is in fact the postage costs where businesses see their highest costs. However, there are postage discounts out there if you know where to look. In this blog article, we're navigating postal discounts for direct mail campaigns, presenting you with the strategies to reduce your postage costs and increase your return on investment (ROI).
- Postage Costs in Direct Mail
- Understanding Postage Discounts
- What Postal Discounts Are Available?
- Other Ways to Reduce Direct Mail Postage Costs
- Postal Discounts with DMS
Postage Costs in Direct Mail
Postage costs are likely to make up most of your direct mail campaign costs. It is therefore important to understand the associated costs and the strategies in which you can save on postage expenses, as they will have a direct impact on the success of your direct mail campaign.
When navigating postal discounts for direct mail, it isn’t always about finding the cheapest way to send out your mailers. Instead, it’s about getting the most out of your direct mail campaign, ensuring every penny invested works hard.
Understanding Postage Discounts
Postage discounts are incentives put in place by postal services, such as Royal Mail, to encourage businesses to use certain mailing methods and follow certain requirements to make the mailing process more efficient. Often referred to as Bulk Postage Discounts, it allows businesses to take advantage of a discounted postage rate if they send a certain volume of mailers or meet other requirements.
Businesses can therefore reduce their campaign costs, improve their ROI, and perhaps allocate more budget to other areas of their campaign. It is therefore important to understand postage discounts, especially for smaller businesses with limited budgets.
What Postal Discounts Are Available?
There are several types of postal discounts available in the UK, each with its own requirements and cost-savings.
Advertising Mail Discounts
Advertising Mail is a service provided by Royal Mail that offers substantial postal discounts of up to 15% for marketing communications sent via direct mail, such as catalogues, brochures, postcard promotions and flyers. Incentives within advertising mail change throughout the years and there are often new incentives that come along to benefit businesses and organisations. Currently, there are the below incentives targeting various business types and direct mail scenarios, all with their own criteria.
- Catalogue Incentive
- Testing & Innovation Incentive
- First Time User Incentive
- Advertising Growth Incentive
Economy Mail Discounts
Economy Mail is another service that is designed for non-urgent mail. This is beneficial to businesses sending out non-time-sensitive mailers, as they can benefit from reduced postage costs, as they will be sent with a longer delivery window, such as 3-5 days.
To be eligible, mailers must not require urgent delivery and there will be a minimum send volume that needs to be adhered to in order to qualify.
Mailmark Discounts
Mailmark provides discounts for businesses that use a more sophisticated barcode system. This barcode system enables better tracking and reporting so businesses can also better monitor their campaign performance as well as receive postage discounts. Mailmark is the latest generation of franking and can currently save businesses 10% against standard franking and 34% against post office/stamp pricing.
To qualify, all mailers must include Mailmark barcodes and the minimum volume requirement also needs to be met.
Other Ways to Reduce Direct Mail Postage Costs
As well as the above schemes and incentives there are other strategies to reduce costs and navigate postage discounts.
Clean Up Your Mailing Lists
Having accurate and up-to-date mailing lists ensures you are not sending to old addresses or those with spelling mistakes, making them undeliverable. Undeliverable direct mail is a waste of money for a company and will negatively impact your response rates and ROI. Ensuring your data is ‘clean’ and accurate is key to saving on postage costs.
Plan Ahead
Planning ahead and ensuring you are not rushing your direct mail campaign is the best way to avoid mistakes. Unlike an online article, a mailer can’t be amended or retracted once it has been printed and sent out. Ensuring it is all correct will save you postage costs in the long run.
Segmentation
Segmenting your audience is key to saving on postage costs. You only want to send your direct mailer to recipients whose message is relevant. Therefore, sending your direct mailer to your entire database may not be appropriate, as some may not be the right target audience for your particular message. Segment your audience by gender, age, interests, location and buying behaviour, to make sure your message gets in front, and only in front of the right people.
Compare Sizes
Size matters in direct mail! Compare the cost of sending different mailers, as the cost difference can be significant. Although a bespoke-sized direct mailer could be distinctive and memorable, it may be much more expensive to send compared to a regular postcard size. Therefore you'll need to weigh up whether the design is worth the increased cost.
Embrace Unsubscribers
Although no marketer wants to see high unsubscribe rates in their database, there is an argument for embracing unsubscribes. This is based on not wanting to waste money on sending a mailer to a recipient who doesn’t want to receive it and is not going to respond. It is therefore best practice to give recipients an option to opt out from receiving direct mail if they wish.
Use a Professional Direct Mailing House
Navigating postal discounts for direct mail campaigns can be a minefield, especially with new incentives coming into play and with so many options out there. Working with a professional direct mailing house is a recommended way to fully benefit from postage discounts, and be confident you are receiving the very best price.
Because of the large amounts of mail direct mailing houses send, they are also likely to benefit from even greater postage and bulk discounts than if you sorted them in-house. Leave it to the experts and save time, money and effort by letting a direct mailing house, like DMS, take care of the postage costs, finding you the most cost-effective solution.
Postal Discounts with DMS
At DMS we are experienced in all types of direct mail as well as the latest incentives and postage discounts available. We will find the most cost-effective solution for your campaign. We also have great relationships with both UK and international postage services and will pass out discounts to you.
Find out more by speaking to a member of the team on 0117 934 1600.