Make Your Direct Mail Distribution Plan

Direct Mail Distribution Channels

How to Determine Total Distribution

In commercial printing, the last thing you want to realize is you did not order enough for your distribution needs. What about other areas in your marketing? It hurt$ when you’ve got to hit the press again because you fell short in quantity!

Below I am going to list many other possibilities that you want to consider before finalizing your production quantity.

Mailing to Existing Clients

Send Your Printed Message to Customers

Explore Other Means of Distribution
When calculating the final amount of direct mail pieces to be sent out, you want to also consider putting aside qualities for other business mailings. You may want to include one of these direct mail pieces in the monthly invoices your accounting department sends out. Now your regular customers can take advantage of the deal your offering. That’s just one example of anther distribution channel for your mail piece.

Alternate Postal Services

In Canada we are limited mainly to Canada Post for carrying your printed message to its destination. In the United States the United States Postal Service performs a similar service. But there are also other independent companies that can also carry your message to a targeted audience. Why not include a direct mail piece with every order shipped?

• CanPar
• UPS
• Purolator
• UPS
• Fed Ex

Brokerage Houses

Deliver Sales Tools to Your Partners

With a large corporation or company we must also consider other distribution outlets such as brokerage houses when finalizing direct mail quantities. For example if you are a large insurance company and have many brokers that sell your service perhaps a couple hundred direct mail pieces sent to each brokerage is worth factoring in.

Financial Institutions

Banks and Lenders to Carry your Message to Customers

Businesses can make arrangements with banks and financial institutions to also carry a circular in their waiting and reception areas.

Mail Drop

Drop Mail Shipments

A mail drop is when a large quantity of your printed material is dropped off to one source to be distributed. For example, sending your printed message in the global marketplace, a mail drop is required to transport your message from one country to another.

Handouts

Handouts at Trade Shows, Malls, Promotional Events

At trade shows or events hand outs are given to people that want more information. You will want to consider an amount to produce for handing out.

First-Class Mail

Send Circulars First Class

You may also want to send your direct mail using first class mail services. If so, determine the quantity you want to send using this method.

Standard Mail

Send Regular Post

Otherwise known as bulk mail, unaddressed ad mail, or letter mail this is probably the most common method used amongst business marketers because it is convenient, direct and inexpensive.

Newspaper Insertions

You can mark or bundle your direct mail pieces in counted quantities and your local newspaper will distribute them as advertising stuffers. This is also a cost efficient method to distribute your marketing message in print advertising.

Direct Mailings

Direct mailings are usually initiated from a database list of clients and/or prospects. When you are printing, designing and distributing your direct mail piece, consider this other distribution channel.

Trade Shows

At trade shows and exhibit booths postcards, tent cards, and brochures are common types of printing to have readily available for your visitors.

Other Store Locations

If there are other store locations that also would benefit from having effective, measurable advertising visible to a targeted audience, allot quantities for their use.

Tally up Your Total Mailing

Hopefully, you can see a bigger picture than you did before. The reason I am posting this information is so you can cover the bases in one press run. The machines used to produce your beautiful mail piece are typically expensive to set up and cheap to operate (run). Avoid costly reprints by planning your print run accordingly. It’s always better to have more than you need, especially with direct mail and marketing pieces.

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