Going Solo: Postcards and Solo Mailings
As catalogers struggle to deal with the new postal rates, there's been a lot of talk about reduction: Many mailers plan to offset costs by reducing trim size, circulation and page counts. But the rate hike may inspire one type of increase— an increase in the use of postcards and solo mailers.
Just about every postal rate increase sparks renewed interest in postcards and solo mailers, notes Sarah White, spokesperson for Thirdwave Research, a Verona, WI-based provider of database and strategic marketing solutions. “Postal rates have been going up for so long, people have been looking at alternative strategies for some time,” she says. “It has a lot to do with the analytics on the back end. We're seeing our clients do some interesting things with postcards based on past purchases and then personalizing the postcards.”
Postcards and similar types of direct mail “can minimize your costs and serve as a pathway to becoming a customer,” says Chris Carpenter, CEO of Sun Prairie, WI-based Royle Printing. “But from a merchandising standpoint, a catalog isn't going to be replaced by a postcard.”
What postcards and solo mailers can do, however, is serve as a cost-effective replacement for and complement to some catalog mailings as part of an overall contact strategy, much as e-mail already has for many multichannel merchants.
Postcard Pluses and MinusesThere's no question that postcards are highly economical to mail, at about $0.25 apiece and as little as $0.15 if they are drop-shipped deeper into the mail stream. That's certainly less than the price of mailing a First Class letter ($0.41 as of May 14) or a typical catalog, according to Todd Kintopf, manager of distribution and postal affairs at Royle Printing.
And recipients are likely to look at postcards: According to a U.S. Postal Service study released last month, postcards were found to have the highest read rate among all direct mail media, including letters and fliers.
But mailers should be aware that postcards need to have a “compelling, actionable message that is relevant,” says Chris Haag, director of sales for Royle Printing. “Where we've seen them used has been around a specific event for a cataloger who also has retail locations, driving traffic to both.”
If you want to spread the word about a special offer or the launch of a product line, postcards can be very effective, Haag says. Postcards can also serve as coupons, invitations, announcements, save-the-date reminders, thank-you cards, follow-ups, special offers, inserts in magazines, admission tickets, mini-newsletters, bookmarks, and quick-reference guides. And since messages have to be clear and succinct on a postcard, Kintopf says, mailing a specific message to a targeted audience on a postcard or a solo mailer can be a very good lead-generation tool.
That's what sports apparel supplier A4 uses postcards for. “We use a catalog and Website, and we only mail catalogs to existing customers,” says CEO Mark Wertens. The Vernon, CA-based company mails about 75,000 catalogs, usually 28-36 pages, each year. “With the postcards, we hope to generate demand.”
