The Best New Direct Mail Technology - Advice from The Experts!
In the direct mail industry, technology has evolved from your basic, traditional direct mail package to one that is variable and often generated across multi-media. Quick Response (QR) codes, variable color personalization, augmented reality, and personalized urls are just a few tools that have helped direct marketers raise the bar on improving results and efficiencies within their direct mail programs. So with all of these new tools in the marketplace, it makes it difficult to decide what to test first.
We turned to the direct mail experts - Jeanne Combos of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington; David Griffiths at Siquis, LTD; and Amy Moorman at Dental Trade Alliance – for their thoughts. They all agreed that mobile barcodes were possibly the best new technology out there. However, Jeanne Combos mentioned another one of importance to her in answer to. . .
“What new technology in direct mail would you suggest to others?”
We’ve see a big cost savings using the Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) with ACS tracking that uses the endorsement “Electronic Service Requested.” Before the IMb, someone in our office would receive all of the returned mail that was undeliverable, and then hand-enter the changes into our database. Since using the IMb, all of our updates and changes in addresses are sent back to us in an excel spreadsheet that we can use to map into our database, saving us time and money.
If you haven’t yet considered testing the Intelligent Mail barcode, now would be a good time to start. Beginning January 2013, the U.S. Postal Service will require the use of IMb for postal discounts as they continue to upgrade their mailing processes.
Download a free resource guide “Informational Guide to the Intelligent Mail Barcode” to learn more about how to put the IMb to work to save you time and money today.
