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Mailing software helps companies battle undeliverable mail costs
Marketing budgets are often very tight. Direct mail campaigns often expose many companies to excessive overhead costs due to the fact that there are more undeliverable mail items than there should be.
Undeliverable mail is expensive
According to the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Postal Service, there are more than 158 billion pieces processed by the agency on an annual basis. Out of that total number, 4.3 percent cannot be delivered because of errors in writing down the address. That may not sound like a significant figure, but it translates to 6.8 billion mail items.
This cost the USPS roughly $1.5 billion to process in 2013, and the expenses that companies face in dealing with undeliverable mail is also burdensome. Direct Marketing News cited data from research from the Winterberry Group, which found direct mail spending is expected to increase 1.1 percent in 2014, reaching $44.5 billion.
Solutions to the problem
If direct mail marketers suffer similar expenses as the U.S. Postal service because of undeliverable mail, they're funneling money out of their organizations needlessly. Address verification software helps businesses tackle address issues by taking many of the problem-laden manual errors out of the equation. Through a Web-based interface, companies can prevent dirty data, or incomplete customer information, from entering their databases. This software also validates ZIP codes and compares street names to make sure they're accurate.
Mailing software allows companies to eliminate duplicate records in their customer contact databases to ensure each individual doesn't have multiple locations listed. The most robust tools will also offer envelope and label design functions that allow a company to create customizable mailers. At the same time, mailing software can help businesses create postal reports, depending on their needs.
