Direct mail is an established and effective marketing tool.

Marketers use a number of tools for marketing communications and the one most widely used over the last few decades is direct mail. By direct mail I mean writing a letter to your customer or prospect to let them know about your product or service and presenting them with an offer.

In order to do this you can use your own mailing list that you have compiled or buy or rent a list via a list broker or information supplier. You then have your lettershop or data service provider personalize the letter you are sending and print and stuff and mail to your prospects. You can use First Class postage or Standard mail in the US or First Class and Addressed Lettermail in Canada.

The preparation of your mail can bring you savings and it may be wise to use a service that is familiar with all the ins and outs of the postal service regulations. If you prepare your mail and have it delivered to the post office in bins that are sorted down to the route code you can achieve a lower cost. It is wise to contact your local postmaster or visit the website of the USPS or Canada Post for more definitive details.

One thing you may want to be sure of is to have your list sanitized first. What do I mean sanitized. Sanitizing makes sure all the data is accurate and in the right format for the postal system. It can also verify your postal coding against the post office files. There are a list of approved vendors in both countries that do sanitization or the industry term list hygiene, and the list is posted on the post office websites.

By running your list through an approved postal service licencee you can be assured that the person whose address you will put on the envelope is checked against the National Change of Address Database. This service will provide you with the new address and postal code via an automatic link with the post office that the file is checked against. You are not guaranteed of any address veracity only if there has been a move where the postal system has been notified.

By making sure your list has been pre-checked before your rent it you can avoid this process but if you are working from an internal list it is a very useful process to employ. By doing it you ensure your offer gets to the right person at the right address. With the move rate hovering about 12% this check can help you save on postage as well as actual letter production.