Direct Mail Marketing Strategic Sourcing

Strategic Sourcing for Direct Mail Marketing

Corcentric understands the complex nature of direct mail marketing and our experts work collaboratively with your internal marketing group to create and implement a direct mail strategy that delivers results.

Direct mail is an opportunity to promote your business with new and existing customers utilizing an established medium. While this marketing tactic remains prominent with advertisers despite the changing marketing landscape, a direct mail campaign can be cumbersome to develop and manage, requiring a great deal of time and resources from your internal marketing team. Marketers need to create the messaging and design of their mailers, obtain the lists of names, coordinate the printing and fulfillment of the mailers, and ensure that they are achieving the maximum discounts with the USPS for postage. To get a successful direct mail campaign off the ground, marketers work with agencies offering various services and capabilities, including:

• Creative Design & Concepts
• Branding/Messaging Development
• Print Services
• Fulfillment (Sorting, Traying, Stuffing, etc.)
• Postage Optimization Services

Direct Mail programs can take different forms and may utilize marketing and advertising agencies in various ways. For example, agencies specializing in direct mail provide strategic and creative input, in addition to working with third party print and lettershops to produce the mailers. These agencies coordinate on your behalf with all production shops for seamless execution of your campaign, alleviating your resources from overseeing these tasks and managing each of these relationships. In contrast, some companies may opt for a decoupling strategy, meaning their own internal resources engage the print and lettershops directly for campaign production. For these organizations, engaging the mailshops directly may be the ideal strategy, especially if the creative and design portions are developed by an internal marketing team.

Corcentric’s marketing experts have category expertise in the direct mail space and understand the complexities and details involved in successfully executing one of these campaigns. Our marketing Sourcing team will work closely with your internal marketing department to understand your unique direct mail needs, and identify the optimal strategy for your organization, including:

• Reviewing historical campaign details to identify top, recurring mailers and associated CPPs within your direct mail portfolio.
• Understanding the current process and relationships with creative agencies, print shops, and lettershops.
• Establishing a clear scope of work, detailing top mailers and associated forecasted volumes, mail drop frequencies, specifications, turnaround times, and other necessary campaign details.
• Identifying potential direct mail partners able to provide services outlined in the scope of work, provide high-quality deliverables, and offer value-added services.
• Developing Request for Proposal (RFP) documents, outlining scope requirements and soliciting information from bidders on fulfillment capabilities, design and creative service offering, equipment, and other qualitative requirements.
• Collecting detailed pricing proposals including a breakdown of CPP by cost component, including markup percentages and material costs.
• Evaluating supplier responses and bid proposals to determine finalist bidders based on a pre-established selection criteria.
• Negotiating proposals and CPPs using market intelligence gained through the RFP process.
• Establishing a clear methodology for CPP calculations for potential future mailers and volume-based pricing tiers for additional discounts.
• Reviewing potential postage optimization strategies with awarded supplier(s) based on current campaign structure for cost savings opportunities.

Our process drives transparency in the overall direct mail process from creative to mailshop, improving visibility into the cost components of your CPP. We’ll utilize cost saving best practices such as postage optimization strategies, establish best-in-class agreements with clear KPIs and SLAs for mailer performance, and reduce spending for out-of- date and incorrect mail list information.

Whether you are looking to identify a direct marketing agency partner for your direct mail campaigns or decouple your current direct mail program, Corcentric has experience working with both direct marketing agencies, as well as print and lettershops directly and can help your organization to develop a best-fit approach. We work with your team to understand the different components of your direct mail campaign and identify the agency partner most suited for your needs, while offering insights into areas of improvement along the way to make the most out of your campaign budget.

Contact our direct mail experts today to learn more about how we can help your company.