Maximize Your Marketing Potential with Informed Delivery

In today’s fast-paced marketing landscape, omnichannel strategies have become essential for creating cohesive and engaging customer experiences across multiple platforms. One way businesses are integrating direct mail with digital engagement is Informed Delivery. This tool by the United States Postal Service is bridging the gap between physical mail and digital touchpoints. Informed Delivery offers marketers an unparalleled opportunity to boost campaign effectiveness and track performance in real-time. Leveraging this tool, especially with its current promotion running from now until the end of the year, which allows you to save 4%, can significantly amplify your marketing efforts.

Let’s break down what Informed Delivery is, how it can maximize your marketing campaigns, and what you need to get started.

What is Informed Delivery?

Informed Delivery is a free USPS notification service that provides residential and business consumers a digital preview of their incoming mail via email or an online dashboard. Here’s how it works:

1. Mail Scanning: When the USPS processes letter-sized mail, high-speed sorting machines capture images of the front of each mail piece.
2. Digital Preview: For Informed Delivery subscribers, these scanned images create daily email notifications. Each email includes grayscale images of the mail that will be delivered that day. Users can access these previews through the Informed Delivery dashboard or USPS Mobile App.
3. Interactive Campaigns for Marketers: Businesses can enhance their mail by adding digital content to the preview. This content, such as clickable links or promotional banners, appears alongside the mail image in the email or dashboard. Recipients can interact with the digital content, driving engagement before receiving the physical mail.
4. Real-Time Engagement: This combination of physical and digital touchpoints allows marketers engage customers early, track campaign performance, and measure engagement in real-time.

Looking to leverage Informed Delivery? Now, through the end of the year, USPS is offering an Informed Delivery Promotion, and Aradius Group can help you take advantage of it. The 2024 Informed Delivery Promotion gives participating companies a 4% discount on postage, all while allowing the end-user to get a sneak peek of their mail, a full-color image with a compelling call-to-action to engage receipts, and a live URL embedded in the ride-along that correlates with your campaign. The postage discount promotion runs from August 1, 2024, to December 31, 2024, and is available for First-Class and USPS Marketing Mail.

Benefits of Informed Delivery for Marketers

Informed Delivery gives marketers a dynamic way to boost campaign effectiveness by offering consumers a digital preview of their physical mail. This innovative service enhances visibility and engagement before the mail reaches their doorstep. Key benefits include:

• Increased Visibility: Email previews of physical mail pieces create additional impressions, expanding reach.
• Higher Engagement Rates: Integrating direct mail with digital elements amplifies customer interaction and response.
• Omnichannel Marketing: It fosters a seamless connection between offline and online channels, delivering a unified and engaging customer experience.

Example:

Lancôme, a luxury beauty brand, used Informed Delivery to boost online sales and store traffic. They provided a digital preview of their mail piece, featuring a discount code for online and in-store purchases, with links to their e-commerce site and store locator. The campaign led to a 22% increase in online orders and improved foot traffic, combining digital engagement with in-store shopping benefits.

How to Create an Informed Delivery Campaign

To create a successful Informed Delivery campaign, start by setting clear goals—whether it’s building brand awareness, generating leads, or driving conversions, defining your objectives is essential. Next, design eye-catching mail and ride-along content that captivates your audience with compelling imagery and messaging. Both physical and digital components should be cohesive, following best practices to ensure engagement. Incorporating interactive content such as QR codes, personalized URLs, and strong calls-to-action in your ride-along ad can further drive interaction and conversions. Finally, track and optimize your campaign using performance monitoring tools. By analyzing engagement data, you can iterate on your creative elements and messaging to continuously improve results.

Example: Successful Informed Delivery campaigns have been used by brands to enhance customer engagement, increase response rates, and improve overall marketing ROI. Let’s take a look at one:

Macy's:

• Campaign Objective: Drive traffic to their seasonal sale event.
• Strategy: Macy’s sent out personalized direct mail with exclusive sale information. Informed Delivery provided customers with a sneak peek of the mail piece alongside clickable digital content leading to Macy’s online store.
• Results: The campaign saw an impressive uplift in both online traffic and in-store visits, demonstrating how direct mail and digital can work in harmony.

Tips to Maximize Your Campaign’s Effectiveness                

Integrating Informed Delivery with other marketing channels can significantly boost your campaign's reach and effectiveness. Here are key considerations for maximizing its impact:

• How to integrate Informed Delivery: Sync your direct mail efforts with digital channels such as email, social media, and mobile ads. This multi-channel approach keeps your audience engaged across platforms.
• Personalization and segmentation best practices: Tailor your messages to different audience segments based on their behavior, preferences, and demographics. Use personalized content to create a more engaging and relevant experience.
• Testing creative elements: Experiment with different messaging, imagery, and offers in your Informed Delivery campaign. A/B testing helps identify what resonates most with your audience, enabling data-driven optimization for better results.

There are a few mistakes you’ll want to avoid, though, when using Informed Delivery:

• Poorly Organized Data: Make sure data is clean to avoid sending it to someone's old address. This is important because the person could see the piece from the informed delivery side but never actually receive it. 
• Lack of Coordination with Other Channels: Your Informed Delivery and other marketing strategies must align to be successful. Ensure that your digital content, direct mail, and other marketing efforts are working together seamlessly.
• Generic Messaging: Personalization is important for a reason – people love receiving something made just for them. Sending out the same message to everyone can lead to lower engagement. Personalize your content based on audience segmentation and consumer behavior.
• Overlooking mobile optimization: Since many users access Informed Delivery via mobile devices, neglecting mobile-friendly designs can lead to a poor user experience. Ensure that all elements are responsive and easy to interact with on smartphones.
  
  

The Takeaway

Informed Delivery offers numerous advantages as part of a well-rounded marketing strategy, including greater visibility, enhanced customer engagement, and a seamless integration of physical and digital channels. By incorporating this tool into your campaigns, you can deliver personalized content directly to your audience's inbox, boosting reach and effectiveness. We encourage marketers to explore how Informed Delivery can unlock new opportunities and take their campaigns to the next level. Ready to get started? Reach out to see how Aradius Group can help you get started with the Informed Delivery Promotion!