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So the latest rate hikes have come and gone and it appears that the turbulence in postal rates is at least temporarily subdued. This is an excellent time to re-examine methodologies for achieving the lowest postage rates for your clients. One effective way to increase response while decreasing costs is by targeting neighborhoods instead of entire ZIP codes. Why saturate an entire ZIP code when you and your client already know there are pockets of residents that would not be good targets?

Mapping Saves Money

How can you target sub-ZIP without spending a lot of money? By using mapping. Maps of ZIP codes broken down by carrier routes let you approximate neighborhoods. Your clients know which neighborhoods to target and which to avoid. They can quickly look at the maps and give you the carrier route codes to saturate so they will still qualify for the lowest postal rates.

Your clients can easily reduce their mailing size by 25% - that translates into big savings between the list fees, printing costs, and of course postage. Even if you only save them 10%, that will be far more than the map costs. And when you show them results that are better than previous campaigns – after all, you’d be trimming known areas of low response – they’ll keep coming back to you.

Add Demographics for Smarter Targeting

Postal-related maps are just the beginning. When you combine demographics, you can then target only those carrier routes that meet your objectives for income, age, home value, etc. Depending on your needs and budget, your mapping provider can layer demographics by carrier route or Census geography.

Mapping by Census geography in particular opens up diverse – and very affordable – ways to target the right neighborhoods. And once you’ve found the best targets, your provider should be able to overlay carrier routes back onto the map to ensure you qualify for postal discounts.

Learn From Existing Customers

Finally, if you have access to your client’s house file, you can analyze neighborhoods using statistics built from their existing customers. Need to find all the carrier routes within 5 miles of each of your client’s stores AND filter out those with incomes under $40k or where your client already has 30% or higher penetration? Mapping techniques can quickly and accurately provide you the answer. Even if you don’t need to see the map itself, most mapping service bureaus can set you up with a subscription service to obtain just the list of carrier route codes that meet your criteria.

Mapping Resources

If you have a budget of around $150,000, you can add the software, data, staff person, and training to your existing infrastructure and be ready to help your clients with mapping. Otherwise, especially if your mapping needs are less frequent, you can enlist a dedicated mapping service bureau to call on an as-needed basis. Make sure you choose a company that is focused on mapping so they aren’t competing with you. You also want to ensure they have proven experience with postal geography down to the carrier route level, including a deep understanding of how carrier route boundaries are defined and a commitment to frequently updating their data. Lastly, your partners should understand your business – while there are many companies that offer general mapping, your best partner will be one focused on the direct marketing industry.

About the Author:

The author, Zephyr Sherwin, works with Maponics, which focuses on ZIP Code maps, carrier route maps, and other map products for businesses. You can find out more at www.maponics.com