A Direct Mail Project Lands in your lap, what do you do now?

James E. Sullivan

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Where do you begin?

What are the Mailing Objectives? What are the creative formats requested? Does it meet postal specifications? What’s the budget? What is the timing? How will it print? What is the paper or ink

needs as well as how will it mail…Live Stamp? Where will it be personalized? How often?

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Think about Postage NOW!

Be sure you know if the budget includes postage, price per piece, price per thousand?

Will this require special die cuts, special printing needs, how about full bleeds? Have you considered mailing this piece with a live stamp or via indicia? 1st Class or 3rd Class?

Have you considered how long it will take to mail and be received by your list?

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Direct Mail True-isms

When in doubt, ask the stupid questions. Over-communicate, especially at the

beginning of any project, especially this one. Do you have the power to make decisions? Sometimes, the client does not have all of the

answers, consult traffic and production for advice on what to do, how it should be done.

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Personalizations

Name and Address only-what about the keycodes? Where is the list code going to be?

Variable messaging-where? Front? Back? Are there matching letters or even a closed

face envelope that gets personalized as well? Have you made sure the window is where the

address information is going to be placed? Is the font available from the WORD library?

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Methods of Addressing

Laser Personalization-Will the paper stock selected, work with laser equipment-better ask!, the lettershop is the LAST PLACE where errors made in the initial planning can be fixed, without spending tons of money NOT IN YOUR BUDGET…Check the paper first with your production manager.

Labels, inkjet? Ask your production manager for samples of previous pieces.

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Match the job to the vendor

Will your selected vendor(s) be best suited for the job? Do they have the right mix?

Will your pre-press house be flexible enough to make all requested color corrections?

Is this a complex job or a simple one for your vendors? Ask the question before its too late.

Ask your vendors about core competencies.

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Envelopes, the carrier….

Will this be a Standard off the shelf envelope? Will this envelope require print and convert? Will this envelope bleed? Special inks? What kind of flaps will you be needing? Don’t forget….no ink on the glue part of the

envelope….the envelope will NEVER SEAL… Are you aware of the 5/8” barcode clearance?

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Understand your Estimate

Insist on line item estimates for printing, Data Processing, Lettershop and postage.

Break out lettershop services such as de-dupe, sorting, addressing, personalization, insert, tabbing, mailing services.

Data Processing needs to be clearly defined for a merge-purge, list cleansing, NCOA and barcode appending as well as delivery needs.

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What about Quality Control?

Did you add at least 5 different seed names to your mailing kit, that includes different address formats? Can you track their delivery times? Include both work and home locations.

Can you go right into the folder and select out Quality Control samples at random?

Are there checkpoints all along the way? HAVE YOU ASKED ALL OF THE QUESTIONS??