Over the past few months, representatives from the United States Postal Service ® (USPS) have attended campaign industry conferences across the country, including Campaigns and Elections’ Reed Awards. At these conferences, my colleagues have listened, presented, and discussed the ever-changing formula to reach, persuade, and motivate the American electorate.
Whether you’re at the top of the ticket or the bottom of the ballot, on behalf of USPS, I’m sharing four tips this cycle that will enable you to get the most out of your campaign.
Reach voters’ inboxes the morning you hit their mailboxes through Informed Delivery®
The Informed Delivery® feature from USPS provides voters the ability to preview in their email inboxes a mail piece the day it arrives in their physical mailboxes. In last year’s 2021 gubernatorial election in Virginia, 41 percent of surveyed voters said they were more likely to open political mail after seeing it in Informed Delivery, according to a Summit Research post-election survey on behalf of the Postal Service.
Every direct mail piece is an omni-channel experience, with a customized color banner that is clickable in the Informed Delivery email. With more than 48 million national Informed Delivery subscribers and an open rate of 67% of users 2, Informed Delivery is a must for campaigns.
And if that isn’t enough, USPS is running a promotion starting August 1 through the end of the year where it is offering a 4% postage discount for mailings that include an Informed Delivery campaign.
Related
Red Tag mail for processing visibility and peace of mind
For any registered political candidate, committee or outside spending group, Red Tag all of your political mail. Period. Tag 57 is a red container tag designed to provide added visibility to direct mail from postal acceptance to processing operations. Tagging your mail alerts all Postal employees in the processing chain this is political mail.
USPS recently reported new delivery performance metrics showing more than 93 percent of First-Class Mail was delivered on-time each week, and more than 93 percent of Marketing mail was delivered on-time over a three-month period.
Political mail campaigns rely on the Postal Service to process and deliver direct mail quickly and accurately. Tag 57 helps USPS do its part to ensure timeliness and efficiencies.
Sequence mail by leveraging Informed Visibility®
The Postal Service offers Informed Visibility® – a near-real-time data reporting tool that tracks your mail as it travels within the mail stream so you know where individual mail pieces are every step of the way. Data is used to track when and where mailings are so campaigns can coordinate efforts across all channels.
These insights allow campaigns to coordinate and time a follow-up email and/or social post to constituents in the same area, with relevant campaign messages that tie back to the direct mail. By knowing when campaign mail has arrived in the voters’ mailbox, campaigns can increase the impact on targeted voters, while streamlining campaigns.
Contact a Direct Mail consultant at the Postal Service to discuss the above or find out about the latest voter insights
At the Postal Service, we are listening and learning from your experiences during the last campaign cycle to become an even stronger partner in the electoral process.
Our expert team of Direct Mail Consultants have marketing and campaign insights, can share best practices in direct mail design, and can provide operational support to help you reach your campaign goals.
For more insights and to connect with a Direct Mail Consultant, visit www.deliverthewin.com/about-us/
Jim Richard is a 25 year postal employee with over 35 years of sales and marketing experience. Jim has been working with political campaigns for 12 years and currently serves as the USPS National Political Mail Strategist to leverage the power of political mail for winning elections. Jim also works within Sales Enablement to build campaigns, sales tools and collateral for leveraging mail’s multiple touchpoints in a Customer’s Purchase Journey.
