New digital integration for direct mailers is a marketing breakthrough.
It will boost your profits.
That’s why I want you to take a few minutes and watch this powerful interactive video on how the U.S. Postal Service’s Informed Delivery system can make it happen. Click on this link to watch.
As the Post Office modernizes the direct mailing experience with Informed Delivery and EngageOne Video, it opens brand new doors for the marketer.
First, what’s Informed Delivery? It is where the USPS digitally images the front of your mail pieces for the recipient to see in advance of your mail delivery.
The digital image is emailed to the recipient to see what they are getting in the mail that day.
Here’s how it works. Consumers can enroll online for a free, password-protected account that creates a digital mailbox for the direct mail they receive at their house.
Before it’s even physically delivered, they can log in and see a grayscale image of the front of a common-sized mail piece, like a #10 envelope or folded self-mailer. (It’s not available yet for P.O. Box customers. And jumbo mailers, catalogs and packages aren’t included at this time).
As a marketer, you can use Informed Delivery to your advantage:

  • Consider how your direct mail can stand out in a grayscale image. It means paying special attention to your teaser copy.
  • Strong teaser copy is essential, now more than ever … it’s another powerful opportunity for the prospect to want to read your mail.
  • Marketers can build campaigns using the Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) to reach a target audience in the digital and physical worlds simultaneously.
  • Marketers can enhance a physical mail piece when it’s scanned into the mailstream with a full color image, interactive content and a click-through URL, with individual URLs coming this fall.

More than 2 million people have signed up already.
A USPS survey found that nine out of 10 people who signed up for the service checked their Informed Delivery notifications every day.
(You can sign up for Informed Delivery by clicking here).
An added bonus is EngageOne Video, which hopefully will be fully operational in 2017.
It allows the Informed Delivery campaign to integrate hard-copy mail with a digital experience when it delivers a preview of what is headed for the mailbox.
It also provides interactive links with details about the content of mail they are receiving.
For example, a high school senior is waiting to hear from a college. He can see if it’s on the way with an email from USPS, along with a link to personalized content (such as a link to a college landing page, video or pictures of kids at the school).
These videos provide marketers with an opportunity to engage digitally before or after they receive their mail.
Engagement is encouraged at the end of each video with a call to action, where marketers can offer prospects the opportunity to see a landing page, video – whatever they want.
The response to Informed Delivery on EngageOne Videos shows promising numbers:

  • Initial response rate was 25%, with 79% of those viewers watching the core message (about 4 minutes of content)
  • 38% watched all the way to the end (5 ½-minute videos)

Next up for the USPS is Informed Visibility Service, which is still in the pilot stage. This will be a one-stop for all your mail visibility needs, making it convenient to track letters and flats. This is:

  • The next phase of tracking mail
  • There’s an additional charge to track
  • Logical Delivery Event (LDE) will indicate through GPS tracking that a postal carrier has delivered the mail.
  • USPS is also supposed to furnish an in-home delivery date based on their time and location of processing.

This can be a profitable new adventure for marketers. If your marketing campaign needs help, write me at [email protected] or call me at 310-212-5727.