A USPS mail delivery truck driving uphill in a city neighborhood on a sunny day, with a view of buildings and trees in the background.

USPS Informed Delivery and Customer Targeting

Drive Results with USPS Informed Delivery and Customer Targeting

Reaching people via direct mail isn’t a difficult process, but it’s highly important to take advantage of the latest marketing innovations. For example, you can take your customer targeting to the next level by using USPS Informed Delivery. How does USPS Informed Delivery work, you ask? Read on to find out! 

Understanding USPS Informed Delivery 

USPS offers Informed Delivery to every household in the United States. By signing up for this service on their website, you can find out what pieces of mail are being delivered to your home each day. Once you’ve signed up and verified your identity, you’ll begin receiving a daily digest that shows you exactly when you can expect mail and packages to be delivered. 

In the past, direct mail companies would simply create a mailer and send it out. Now, though, they have the opportunity to go further by leveraging USPS Informed Delivery. You’ll be able to create a representative image for your direct mailers that will automatically show up in each person’s daily digest. Additionally, you’ll save advertising dollars with this free add-on service, and you’ll be able to expand your reach and boost engagement. Plus, you’ll receive valuable customer insights and elevate the customer experience.  

The Power of Personalized Mail in Direct Marketing

Non-personalized direct mail typically has a response rate of around 2%. Adding personalization, though, will increase the response rate to approximately 6%. This one fact alone shows the power of personalized mail and proves that if you’re not already using it, you really should.

If you received your daily digest and saw that one of the mailers used your actual name on it, you’d be more inclined to check it out, right? This is basic psychology. Once you toss in audience segmentation tactics, you can greatly enhance your response rate. For instance, Marley Spoon successfully segmented their audience and received a 20% response rate from former subscribers. [1] 

Another good example can be found in Lollypop Farm, an animal shelter in NY. They harnessed the power of personalization and almost doubled their response rate. Furthermore, they received more than double their usual donations. [2] 

Customer Targeting Through Addressable Advertising

Addressable advertising is a way of showing a customer something they’ve already indicated they’re interested in. A prime example is that Facebook customizes the ads they show you based on a series of signals you unconsciously show them. Are you interested in bestselling books? You’ll begin to see lots of book ads. Are you looking for art from your favorite artist? Suddenly, shops that sell their art will show up in your ads. 

One way that direct mail companies utilize addressable advertising is by combining their efforts with digital advertising campaigns. Thanks to Informed Delivery, it’s possible to run a simultaneous direct mail campaign with a free digital ad inside of each person’s daily digest. In a test of the system, the USPS discovered that 57% to 65% of these ads were clicked on.  

Valvoline targeted specific customers by tying picture texts in with a written explanation. Adding in this one extra form of marketing enabled them to increase their coupon’s reach by 76%. [3]   

Innovating Your Marketing Strategy with USPS Informed Delivery

Direct mail thrives on marketing innovation. One example is the usage of sensory experiences. By adding embossing, foiling, or scent to your mailers, you’ll be in a stronger position to capture attention and improve ROI. [4]

USPS Informed Delivery mail, sometimes incorrectly referred to as USPS Information Delivery, makes it easier to experiment with your messages and imagery. Rather than trying something completely new on your expensive direct mailers, you can see how well your audience responds by using Informed Delivery’s representative image instead. 

To get the most out of each direct mail campaign while leveraging the power of Informed Delivery, you should always use these best practices from the USPS: 

  • Determine your campaign goals early
  • Identify your campaign submission method
  • Coordinate the timing of your campaign 
  • Develop a campaign strategy 
  • Reference the pre-campaign analysis report 
  • Organize the elements of your mail campaign 
  • Produce a compelling mail campaign creative 
  • Leverage informed images 
  • Test and compare your campaigns 
  • Analyze campaign metrics and success
  • Leverage campaign insights 

The Future of Direct Mail: Combining Technology with Traditional Marketing

Using addressable marketing in concert with direct mail marketing will become an increasingly successful endeavor. After all, combining these two factors makes it possible to reach your customers wherever they are. It’ll be critical to properly manage your data from these campaigns, though. Otherwise, you’ll just be tossing money down the drain. 

Informed Delivery has already increased website traffic for 39% of users, but what other innovations are on the horizon? [5] Informed Visibility will take on a bigger role, which is good news considering it increases website traffic for 48% of users. [5] Overall, there will be an even bigger emphasis placed on combining direct mail and digital advertising. 

Case Studies: Success Stories Using USPS Informed Delivery

The Pittsburgh Pirates tested different ride-along images through Informed Delivery, which clearly showed them what option works best. One of their images had a 9% higher response rate, while the other had an astronomical 39% higher response rate. [6]

Another company that uses Informed Delivery, Bono’s Pit Bar-B-Q, experimented with grayscale versus color imagery. Surprisingly, the daily digests with the grayscale image saw a 35% higher click-to-open rate than the full-color image. [6] This confirmed what Informed Delivery already knew, as grayscale images have an average of a 13% higher click-to-open rate. [6] These campaigns teach us that it’s always a good idea to test out a theory rather than putting your entire marketing budget behind the idea that you think looks best. 

Are you in the market for an enhanced direct mail campaign? Century Direct can help your business increase your ROI through direct mail processing, targeted mailing lists, postal optimization, and much more. Learn more by visiting our website. Once you’re ready to move forward, contact us right away! 

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This post was written by Eric Seid