More folks than you may think - until you think about it.
Fish swim, birds fly, mailers mail. Direct mail is done by direct mailers. It's us professional mailers who worry about designing an effective mail piece, following all the postal regulations, managing transportation, making sure the postage is paid. We know all of the arcana of how mail moves through the system, and all of the acronyms – oh, the acronyms! FCM, SCF, NDC, DDU, DMU, FSS, ACS, IMB, DPS…we could go on, of course, but we won't.
So, naturally, when mail is tracked the tracking data goes to the mailer. The mail service provider (I'd say "mailhouse" but those don't exist anymore), the marketing department, the ad agency. And more often than not, that's where the tracking data stays. Frankly, in a lot of cases no one looks at their mail tracking until something goes wrong – that something being no response. Then the mail tracking gets VERY interesting. Other than that, mail tracking tends to stay with the mailer – which is a shame, because there are a lot of other parties who care about that mail – maybe more than the mailer.
The real beneficiaries of advertising mail are often local branches of large organizations:
- Imagine a real estate agent who is getting a few hundred "Just Listed" postcards sent on their behalf. That agent cares more about when their mail is delivered than the home office marketing department does.
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A national chain of clothing stores may send out millions of pieces of mail advertising an upcoming event, but it is each store manager who really cares when the mail is getting delivered around their store, so they can get ready for increased traffic.
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Even nonprofits doing fundraising direct mail often have affiliates around the country.
These are the people who really need to know when the mail is being delivered! And they rarely do – all that info is with the person who created the mail.
That's why we created YourMail™. As soon as mail begins to get delivered locally, YourMail™ sends an email to the local branch – be it a store, or a chapter, or maybe a region. And what an email it is:
It has a simple message: Great news! Your mail is getting delivered! We include a couple of dates and how many pieces are being delivered locally. This is the information they need in the field. You mailers can worry about the DDU and the IMb, the DDU and the OMG. Your field just wants to know they have mail delivering so they can get ready to act.
So you big mailers should feel free to look at your national distribution reports and frown at various graphs as you do your in-depth analysis of mailing patterns across our fair nation. We get that at SnailWorks, and we give you the tools to do it. Your field just wants to know when their customers are coming. We'll be happy to let them know on your behalf.