Internet-Driven Direct Mail �� Faster, Cheaper, Easier

Internet-driven direct mail allows customers to create direct mail -- with the use of pre-defined templates -- on their own PCs for delivery in one to two business days.

THE TARGETABILITY OF direct mail is its greatest asset. With the help of a good mailing list, direct mail can deliver a tailored message to a narrowly defined demographic group, such as military veterans over the age of 65 or 35- to 45-year-old college-educated Hispanic women.

A well-designed piece of persuasion mail, complete with powerful four-color images, can boost a candidate's poll numbers literally overnight. And a well-written fundraising letter with a sense of purpose and urgency can go a long way toward filling a candidate's war chest.

In short, there's a reason why campaigns for president all the way down to dog catcher use direct mail -- it works.

Room for Improvement?

Sure, direct mail is a powerful tool for political campaigns, but is there room for improvement? Stay tuned because the answer may very well be "yes."

It takes two things to run an effective direct mail campaign -- time and money, and lots of it. Direct mail is expensive, plain and simple. Printing and postage cost big bucks, not to mention the creative side of the process. And yes, it's true, pound for pound direct mail is more expensive than television. Just to put the cost of direct mail in perspective, let's look at it in the context of fundraising. Direct mail can run as much as 50 cents per dollar raised. And if you're prospecting, you can count on ponying up roughly twice that amount for the same return.

There is no doubt that cost prohibits many campaigns from doing well-balanced, comprehensive direct mail drives.

That brings us to the issue of time. Direct mail takes a hefty chunk of time to deliver to an audience. Not only are printing and mailing costly, they take a while -- in a perfect world, perhaps two weeks, but if we're talking about the world you and I live in, it's more like three.

Such a protracted lead time reduces the role direct mail can play in the increasingly tech-heavy, time-sensitive context of contemporary campaigns. For example, direct mail is a supremely ineffective medium for responding to attacks by the opposition. Television, radio, telephone and the Internet are infinitely better equipped than direct mail to respond to an attack ad. Direct mail can't compete with other campaign tools for one reason -- mode of delivery. Regardless of the competence, resolve and efficiency of US. postal carriers, they simply cannot match the speed of phone lines or broadcast towers when it comes to delivering a message.

The check really is in the mail, it just hasn't gotten there yet.

A Better Mousetrap?

Don't be disheartened by all this doom and gloom. It appears there's help on the way.

Internet-driven direct mail is beginning to make its mark on the world of political campaigning. And it is doing so for two main reasons: 1) it's faster than traditional direct mail and 2) it s oftentimes cheaper.

Zairmail, a Portland, Ore.-based firm, has brought the Internet and postal mail together. And the pairing is beginning to turn a few heads in the political community.

Zairmail Express Direct (www.zairmail.com) is an Internet-based direct mail service that allows customers to create direct mail -- with the use of pre-defined templates -- on their own PCs for delivery in one to two business days. Talk about a campaign manager's dream. (It should be noted that these are not self-mailers but rather letter- or legal-size pages to be mailed in double-windowed #10 envelopes.)

Here's how it works. You go to the Web site and choose a template (e.g., 8.5" x 11", b&w/highlight color/four-color; 8.5" x 14" with perforated tear-off and BRE, b&w/highlight color/four-color). You can create the direct mail piece in either Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF on your computer desktop. Once the piece has been composed and laid out, you then upload your mailing list and select either 1st Class or Standard A postage. You also have the option of perusing a proof of the piece before it is mailed. That's all there is to it.

Zairmail compiles and maintains your mailing list database, including de-duping and presorting for the lowest mail rate. Your mail piece is routed to a regional printing facility. It is printed, folded, addressed, stamped and presented to the postal service for immediate delivery.

So how does Internet-driven direct mail get to your audience so quickly? The key is the infrastructure behind the scenes. Zairmail has partnerships with regional printing facilities and mail houses across the country, so your mail piece can be routed to a site that is close to the mail's ultimate destination. National campaigns can utilize multiple facilities to further speed up the process.

Pricing starts as low as 56 cents for a one-page black and white letter mailed at Standard A rates. A run of 5,000 or more entitles you to a special rate of 50 cents per piece.

What It Can Do for You

Internet-driven direct mail is something of a hybrid, blending the convenience and speed of e-mail with the universality and tangibility of conventional mail. In doing so, it bridges the "digital divide" by allowing campaigns to reach people who are not wired to the Web.

This new technology has the potential to be of value to campaigns across the board. It is a savvy way for low-budget campaigns to launch direct mail efforts from a PC desktop, and also a way for any campaign, big or small, to respond to attacks from the opposition. It can be used for that last-minute fundraising effort or "thank you" notes, which are important but frequently abandoned due to a lack of lucre.

Although there will be plenty of critics, Internet-driven direct mail offers candidates a new weapon for the campaign arsenal.

Peter Wendel is managing editor of Campaigns & Elections magazine.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Campaigns & Elections, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group