10 Steps to Create a Direct Mail Piece

Remember the adage we were all hearing about 15 years ago?  “Direct Mail is dead and will be gone in five years.”  Well, that isn’t what happened (even in the tumultuous 2020!), and it goes to show you that the future is not predictable — as we’re all learning during these times.

While direct mail is certainly not the most glamorous aspect of direct-response fundraising, it is the workhorse and the channel that the majority of your donors use to support you.  So how exactly does the finished piece your donors receive get developed, printed, and mailed?  For those of a certain age … cue the Schoolhouse Rock video!  (“I’m just direct mail, I’m only direct mail …”)

The time and energy many direct-response professionals and production experts put into what, at first glance, looks to be a simple #10 envelope, is often taken for granted or simply misunderstood.

Here are the 10 steps that take a direct mail piece from strategy to your donor’s mailbox:

1. Data.  As with any other direct-response strategy, data drives the decisions on what worked and what did not, and determines the next thing we want to learn through testing.  Whether it’s testing the size of the outer envelope (OE), or the photo on the letter, it all comes down to how donors responded.
2. Creative Development.  Whether tweaking a control or developing a completely new package, a broad discipline group including analytics, client service, and production is important to creating the right package for the right audience with a clear goal in mind.
3. Pricing and Production.  This is where the rubber meets the road.  The best idea can fall apart if a package is difficult to produce on a large scale, or is so technically challenging that it becomes cost prohibitive.
4. Timeline Management.  This is an area where understanding what’s involved can be an “aha” moment for those who aren’t in the details.  The timeline from creative development through delivery of the mail piece into the donor’s mailbox covers so much more than just the printing of the piece itself.  Including the steps above, there are major milestones to meet.  It’s a full-time job project managing each aspect of the timeline — as different direct mail campaigns are in varying stages of launch, production, and completion.
5. Client Review.  This is a critical step to ensure that the messaging and intent meets the client’s needs, and represents their goals and mission.  Depending on the review requirements, this process can take either several days or sometimes several weeks.  All requested changes then need to be incorporated in the creative, proofed for error, and delivered for final approval.
6. Mail File Processing.  In order to reduce postage costs, the lettershop will postal qualify the mail file in order to optimize the rate and delivery of the mail.  Additionally, this is where data hygiene is often done to standardize casing, remove duplications, program variable text, program gift-ask logic, program content for missing or unusable fields, program scanline logic, and finally, program for postal tracking.
7. Print Production.  Each component of a mail piece has different specifications in paper stock, ink, size, and production process.  All of this information is often coordinated across multiple print vendors in order to have each component delivered at the optimum time to the lettershop.  Think of it this way: When you’re cooking your Thanksgiving meal, you need to get all the dishes prepared and cooked — each at different temperatures and cooking times — all to be ready when the family sits down to eat.
8. Final Sign-Offs.  In order to ensure that what is finally printed is correct — not only in content, but in look — the sign-off review is the last chance to validate before production rolls.  This step is where a sample of each text, package, and/or creative version is reviewed.  The checklist covers a multitude of items, including: donor name and salutations are pulling correctly, variables within the copy are correct, gift-ask array logic is pulling correctly, scanline (including appeal code) is correct, remit addresses are correct, the letter signer signature is correct, all addresses appear in the OE and RE windows correctly, and more.
9. Lettershop.  We’re almost there, folks!  Once the letters have been printed with the donor’s unique data, they are cut and folded, and along with all other package components (OE, RE, insert, etc.), they’re delivered to the insertion machine, where the operator sets up the insertion machine based on the order and orientation of each piece.  Quality control (QC) “pulls” along the way provide checkpoints that the finished product is correct.
10. Postal Acceptance.  Based on the postal qualify, the mail is distributed into trays or bags, and presented to the postal service for review and clearance.  Shipping mail directly to SCFs and BMCs is also a major role of the lettershop’s logistics department, to ensure that mail hits in-home at the desired time.

While the above list is certainly not entirely comprehensive, it should provide you with an appreciation of the amount of energy, time, and detail required for that simple #10 envelope that just arrived in your mailbox.