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Direct Mail Marketing Tips from Action Mail

Here are some tips to make your next direct mail effort run smoothly . . .

  1. When mailing using a pre-printed Mailing Permit (Indicia) as a means for paying postage, all mailing pieces must be of identical size and weight.
  2. For any mailing list that you own (your customer file, etc.), make sure you keep a copy of it.  Once a mailing has been completed, your mailing company cannot be responsible for your list, unless you are paying them a fee to maintain it for you. For repeat mailings, you will want to supply the same list to your mailing company.  By either maintaining a copy of your mailing list in-house, or paying your mailing house to maintain your list for you, you’ll help ensure that the correct list is being used for your job.
    • Note that if you NEED a mailing list, we can help you with a mailing list rental. List rentals are for one-time use only, unless you specify otherwise and pay the list owner for multiple uses.
  3. Standard bulk mail has no guaranteed delivery time. Average delivery time is 2-5 days for local mail, 1- 2 weeks statewide, and 1 – 4 weeks nationwide. These are averages only.  If your mail is date-sensitive, either mail early or use First Class mail.
  4. In order to keep the cost and time of preparing your mailing list to a minimum, your list should be in one of the standardized formats:
    • Comma delimited and tab delimited are the most common and easy to use.
    • Other acceptable formats are .dbf, .csv, fixed field format, and in most cases label image files.
    • Any other formats will require additional time to prepare, and additional cost to convert.
  5. Fields within the data must be consistent — the street must always be in the street field, the zip code in the zip code field, etc. Fields may not contain 2 lines of data. International addresses should not use the zip code field for postal codes and must have a separate field for country.
  6. Have your printer deliver directly to your mailing house (Or just have us handle BOTH the printing and the mailing – to simplify everything!)
  7. Please let us know in advance what you would like us to do with any leftover mailing materials.