Marketing Sustainably: What's Going on Beyond and Beneath the Green? A blog posting questions, opportunities, concerns and observations on sustainability in marketing.
Chet Dalzell has 25 years of public relations management and expertise in service to leading brands in consumer, donor, patient and business-to-business markets, and in the field of direct marketing. He serves on the Direct Marketing Association Committee on the Environment and Social Responsibility, where he is currently chairman of the Committee's Marketing & Communications Public Outreach Strategy Working Group (2005-present).
Chet co-developed the first professional certificate program in environmentally responsible marketing within the United States. He also served on the United States Postal Service Greening the Mail Task Force (2007-2010), and led its Life Cycle of Mail Subcommittee.
Email Chet below, or reach him at Twitter or LinkedIn.
YouTube is currently the second largest search engine on the Internet. With 1 billion unique monthly visitors watching YouTube videos,...
Most people know Web 2.0 is simply the evolution of the Internet into an environment of interactivity, reader participation and...
I often get super excited when I see other businesses doing cool and innovative things in mobile. You read an...
If it costs five times more to acquire a new customer than to keep one, why do brands continue to...
This year's hot trend in fashion is computers. Whether at SXSW or in the tech and media hubs on the...
Somewhere, in the world just on the other side of the rainbow, there is a magical day for sending emails....
Is generating leads with LinkedIn proving frustrating and difficult? Probably because you're failing at tempting prospects to click more deeply...
E-commerce opportunity is evolving fast, but only 25 percent of B-to-B marketers are taking advantage of it, according to a...
I live in a relatively small, rural town of 50,000 residents spread over 61 square miles. My specific neighborhood still...
Instagram announced the company will soon begin using your content to sell targeted advertising products to the highest bidder. Does...
It finally happened. Politicians' idiotic email practices had a measurable negative effect. "Maine Republican Party chairman Charlie Webster has admitted...
Trouble is, the Internet is rife with misinformation and if you get caught advertently or inadvertently propagating this nonsense in...
Wondering about a SEO content strategy that offers the biggest impact in the shortest time? Try tweaking your page titles....
|
The USPS recently shared some interesting data on the volume and cost of undeliverable as addressed (UAA) mail.
According to the USPS, "Total UAA volume dropped from 9.3 billion pieces (4.71 percent of total mail volume) in FY 1998 to 6.9 billion pieces (4.11 percent of total mail volume) in FY 2010. (This reduction, while significant, falls far short of previous Postmaster General Jack Potter's goal of reducing UAA mail by 50 percent by 2010.) Historically, UAA mail runs in the range of 4 percent to 5 percent of total mail volume, and the percentages of total volume vary by class of mail. Periodicals mail, for example, has a UAA percentage of about 1.5 percent, while Standard Mail usually runs about 6.75 percent. Interestingly, the volumes of UAA mail that the USPS forwards or treats as waste both experienced declines, but the volume of UAA mail that the USPS returns to sender actually increased."
All this UAA is money down the drain to the mailers—who designed, produced and labeled it and applied its postage—and to the Postal Service that has to deal with its final disposition.
That tab was $1.3 billion in 2010, and that was just the cost to the Postal Service, which has to incorporate these costs into its rate-setting. Add to this bill the cost of 7 billion pieces that went nowhere near the intended recipient—and that's a fortune off the bottom line. Some of this is inefficiency. Marketers in particular—primarily who use the Standard Mail category—must do a better job in data hygiene and the use of postal addressing and preparation tools.
It may be helpful, and profitable, for mailers to make sure they are undertaking every feasible effort to keep their mailing lists clean—and to avoid this hefty bill. The Direct Marketing Association has an online tool to help marketers make sure their list hygiene and data management efforts are up to par.
It's called the Environmental Planner & Optional Policy Generator, and it's based in part on the DMA's "Green 15" Environmental Principles. But the green focus is dual in nature. Avoiding mail waste through proper data management also applies green—as in money—back to the bottom line! Consider these suggested activities from this planner to get back some of this billion-plus that are lost to UAA:
________________________________________________________
I. LIST HYGIENE AND DATA MANAGEMENT
Our company continually endeavors to manage data and lists in an environmentally responsible manner with a focus on reducing the amount of duplicate, unwanted and undeliverable mail [to both consumers and businesses]. To achieve our goals in this area [If applicable to the goals and/or nature of your organization, please select one or more of the following options.]:
A. We Maintain Suppression Lists
B. We Offer Notice & Choice
C. We Clean Our Lists Prior to Mailing
D. We Merge/Purge Our Data
E. We Test Market Offers
For more information, see DMA Environmental Resource Guide, "Mailing List Management: A Key to Waste Reduction," pages 63-70.
________________________________________________________
Now the entirety of the UAA issue is not attributable solely to less than adequate data management, but it is likely a good portion of it is. We know the DMA Board of Directors—in adopting its first environmental public goal which in part commits to reduce UAA by 25 percent from 2009 to 2013—very much intends for marketers to avoid losing these billions down the line.
The Postal Service is working closely with mailers and, vice versa, to tackle other ways to manage UAA and to reduce its volume. Certainly, Intelligent Mail barcodes will help, with the ability to track mail whereabouts in real time as it moves through the USPS's processing and handling. "Return to Sender" UAA is the most costly for the Postal Service to handle, because of the return handling costs—that, too, needs attention.
In the very least, marketers also should work with their mail service providers most closely to design mail pieces for postal automation compatibility, to apply proper data management practices (as indicated by DMA, for example), and—as the USPS embarks on its network consolidation effort—to track their mail most precisely through the mail stream. A billion dollars and more are in the balance.
Helpful Links:
DMA First Public Green Goal, concerning List Hygiene
DMA Environmental Planner & Optional Policy Generator
 |
|
|
|
|
