Melissa Data: personalised saturation mail more likely to be read

With the US Postal Service now expanding its simplified saturation mail advertising programme, mail data quality specialist Melissa Data has claimed it can provide the same service at “virtually the same cost”, but with the added bonus of obtaining residents’ names. USPS was given regulatory approval this month to expand its Every Door Direct Mail service beyond the trial undertaken since early 2011.

The service helps small and mid-sized businesses create an easy direct mail campaign to send out flyers and leaflets to every household on selected delivery routes locally, with a special online tool to determine the number of mailpieces needed for select routes – without the need for mailing lists.

It particularly seeks to highlight the effectiveness of the physical mail channel for local advertising among a sector of American business that is relatively untapped regarding their marketing dollars.

But California-based Melissa Data has now said it can provide the same service with lower postage, and providing residents’ names for mail campaigns.

And, the company says that personalised direct mail, rather than saturation mail delivered to a nameless resident or homeowner, can “typically” generate a response rate more than three times better.

Its figures suggest highly personalized color direct mail generates around a 6.5% response rate, compared to a 2% response rate for non-personalized direct mail.

“Personalising your direct mail piece with the resident’s name dramatically increases the likelihood of being opened and read,” said Greg Brown, the Melissa Data vice president of marketing.

Melissa Data said saturation mail – reaching every address in a local area – can be particularly effective for small businesses because they tend to commonly have most of their customers living locally.

It said saturation mailing can save 20-25% off the cost of USPS Standard Mail services, and 50-60% compared to First Class Mail.

Melissa Data’s Saturation Mailing Lists feature more than 142m addresses, 77% of which include names, the company said.