There are solutions catalogers can do to safeguard their catalog from rising postage costs. In a hand-out at the American Catalog Mailers Association’s National Catalog Forum in Washington, D.C., Quad/Graphics offered eight solutions to prevent rising postage costs.
Here are the eight smart solutions from Quad/Graphics:
- Co-Mail: It will optimize your presort savings and build pallets that will qualify for delivery deep into the postal system. For example, catalogers can realize presort discount savings up to $35 per 1,000 copies mailed, according to Quad/Graphics.
- Drop Ship: Take advantage of drop-ship discounts, qualify your mail for additional postage discounts and improve service by transporting your catalogs as close to their final destination as possible.
- Use Address Hygiene: This is step on to avoid becoming “junk mail” with 6% to 10% of all mail currently being undeliverable, address hygiene minimizes the amount of bad addresses , appends postal codes for automation discounts and optimizes mail delivery, and the potential to increase your response rates, according to Quad/Graphics.
- Eliminate Duplicate Addresses and Non-responders: Delivery optimization solutions such as merge/purge and suppressions eliminate waste and save postal dollars by mailing the right number of pieces to the people who are most likely to respond.
- Evaluate Circulation Plans: Determine whether marginal house file names meet ROI requirements based on historical Life Time Value measures. From there you can intelligently examine your contact strategy and adjust the number of times you mail to a contact as an alternative to cutting each mailing, according to Quad/Graphics. Purge your list of non-buying, lapsed customers or direct those names into a direct mail reactivation campaign.
- Use Advanced Database Techniques: Select and segment customers and prospects more effectively. Not only can you reduce printing and postage costs by mailing only to your best customers and prospects, you can increase your response rates.
- Improve Response Rates 1-to-1 Personalized Messaging and Offers: Unleash the power of your database by adding highly targeted personalization to your catalog. It will drive up sales and lower cost per response, while it builds stronger more profitable customer relationships, according Quad/Graphics.
- Explore the Options: Be aware you have options to boost catalog sales. There are many ways to connect and engage with prospects and customers – oftentimes what triggers each to respond is different. Combining print and online channels to acquire, engage, retain and grow average order size is key to growing your business.