Free Email Service, Informed Delivery, Set to Rollout in 2017
What response rate would you need to deem your direct mail marketing campaign successful? Two percent? One percent?
What would your ROI look like if that response rate jumped to nearly 6%? This is a question you can start asking should the United States Postal Services’ Informed Delivery take off in 2017—which it is currently set to do.
Informed Delivery is a USPS notification system that emails photo images of the recipients’ mail that they are set to receive later that day. This daily service allows people to get a snapshot of what mail pieces they’re about to receive (letter-sized only; does not include packages, magazines, etc.), keeps people informed when they’re out of town or unable to retrieve their mail, and will engage users with USPS digital promotions.
This free service, whose pilot program is being tested in Virginia, New York, and Connecticut, showed the average response rate of subscribers to be 5.9%, which pales in comparison to the control mailing’s response of 0.5%. Additionally, USPS survey results showed “9 out of 10 participants check these notifications daily—indicating this offering is already providing significant value to residential customers,” (USPS).
This service appears to be one that people don’t even know they want, but may soon feel like they need, a trait that makes many new innovations appealing and successful. Considering how closely many Americans track their packages and shipments from their desktop or mobile devices on a daily (or even hourly) basis, it seems as though this is a logical way for letter mail to make that digital leap and provide a truly convenient service to its users.
And for marketers, this is a no brainer. In a game where all numbers lead back to ROI, an increase in return due to this new service could mean shifts in direct marketing plans for many.
Learn more about Informed Delivery here. Download the Informed Delivery Fact Sheet here (PDF).
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