News
 Delivering
Results: The Rewards of Saturation Mailing
By John Hull, VP, technical services, Melissa Data
If you’re a small, local
business looking for an inexpensive way to increase
your sales, you might want to consider “saturating”
your market. A saturation mailing is a targeted
offer to the true customer base of a business. It’s
inexpensive both in preparation and postage, and can
reach customers quickly.
But before you begin, make sure you understand the
rules. A saturation mailing needs to meet certain
requirements set by the United States Postal
Service® (USPS®). For example, the mailing must be
directed to more than 90 percent of a carrier route,
which is defined as the entirety of addresses to
which a single postal carrier delivers. Usually, a
carrier route consists of about 450 addresses.
The other main requirement for a saturation mailing
is that the mailing has to be sorted in “walk
sequence,” the actual sequence that the carrier
walks the route. For efficiency purposes, every day
each postal service carrier in the US delivers the
mail in a specific order. That route never varies,
day in, day out, rain or shine.
When a direct mailing effort is organized in
walk-sequence order, it significantly lowers postage
costs. The Postal ServiceTM offers saturation
mailing rates as low as 0.179 cents per piece for
businesses as an incentive to presort the mailing
before bringing it to the Post OfficeTM. Compare
that 18 cents to the Standard Basic Letter rate of
$0.234 cents (as of 5-12-08) and you’ll see the
large savings. Nonprofits can reap even greater
monetary benefits, with postage as low as $0.108
cents per piece.
Perfect for Local Offers
For many small businesses, a saturation mailing can
mesh perfectly with customer growth efforts or
retention pushes. Those companies that are in the
service or delivery business – auto repair garages,
boutique retailers, pizza places, and restaurants,
for example –can, without a doubt, profit from
saturation mailings.
Indeed, any local business that mails postcards,
including auto dealerships, even medical offices,
can benefit from experimenting with these mailings.
Offers like “50 percent off” an entree or “$5 off an
oil change” can be magnets for new customers – and
can also bring back lapsed ones. Most important, the
unique business proposition that your business
offers will be reinforced in the minds of vital
neighborhood shoppers.
This is where location comes into play. The clients
of a small business generally live within two to
five miles of the business. A good saturation
mailing gives you instant name recognition
throughout your neighborhood. Imagine potential
customers receiving a new restaurant’s saturation
mailing piece and, later that day, driving by the
restaurant. They think, "Oh, yes, I know that
place..." The restaurant has kicked it up a notch –
and is on the mental map of newfound local
residents.
Value for Your Dollars
Saturation mailing lists also offer small businesses
greater value per name/address purchased than the
more costly resident lists. Unquestionably, resident
lists can be pulled from a wider range of criteria.
For example, many list brokers or managers offer
resident lists that can be selected by age of
individual listed; total household income; length of
residence; mail-order buyers; and many other
selects. If those demographic points dovetail well
with a company’s customers, then a resident-list
mailing may make sense.
But for a local small business, the price of a
saturation mailing list is minimal and its
effectiveness per piece can be substantial. List
costs are considerably lower for saturation
mailings, so you can send out more pieces. For
example, you could send out 10,000 pieces in a
saturation mailing for the same price of 1,000
pieces with names on a resident’s list.
That’s where choosing the right carrier routes,
trying those within five miles of the business, will
allow the success of the saturation-mailing campaign
to take off. And it’s worth noting that, contrary to
popular belief, you are not limited to a “Dear
Occupant” tagline. You can use individual names as
part of the address. There is a cost factor to
consider, but the added distinctiveness of the piece
can be worth it.
An inexpensive list, carefully chosen from local
carrier routes with addressee names, has success
written all over it. In fact, saturation mailings
are so efficient that newspapers are experiencing a
noticeable loss of advertising space to direct
mailers. Saturation mailings offer an environment
without competition, plus a much greater opportunity
for branding, since your ad won’t be buried deep
inside a newspaper.
Find the Right List
Don’t be intimidated by the scope of such a project
as saturation mailing. Direct mail designers and
mailing companies know the steps and can help along
the way. Many list brokers have self-serve, online
products and services (and specialists to help) that
range from free simple queries to instantaneously
downloadable saturation mailing lists. Just enter in
your ZIPTM Codes and the lists will be ready in less
than a minute.
Simple counts of the addresses of a specific carrier
route can be used for planning piece totals; rough
costs for mailing can be estimated through reliable
mailing houses or printers, or on the USPS Web site.
Similarly, these sources are able to advise on the
dimension limits for postcards or letters used in
saturation mailings (generally, the minimum is 3½
inches high and 5 inches long).
The rewards of saturation mailings can be many. The
key is to be ready to capitalize on the three L’s:
Location of the business, Location of the
all-important neighborhood customers, and Location
of the Post Office. It’s really that simple. The
rewards will deliver themselves.
For more information about saturation mailings,
please call a list specialist at 1-800-800-6245,
opt 6.
Get free counts and purchase Occupant Lists here
View or download a chart of all postage rates here
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