Summary
BlueLena offers direct mail service for publishers to send mail to readers with our guidance and support. Direct mail is a premium add-on service available to publishers under managed service agreements.
The all-inclusive pricing of mail units described later in this document includes BlueLena’s strategic guidance, execution and tracking of performance for each direct mail send.
Additional services, such as custom direct mail created design or implementation of BlueLena’s propensity model to identify high value target donors is available for an additional cost.
Getting started
Address collection
Publications that want to send direct mail will need contact addresses (and preferably names) to do so. There are a few ways to identify addresses:
Postal append — BlueLena offers a service to append name and postal addresses for your existing email contact list. The cost to append postal addresses is $100/1,000 contacts (minimum charge of $250) and you are only invoiced for successfully matched records (ex: a file of 10,000 contacts that results in 5,000 postal matches would be invoiced at $500 based on $100 per thousand contacts).
Organic postal address collection — Publishers may already have some mailing addresses attached to contacts or can begin a process to ask contacts to provide mailing addresses. This can be done by sending a “complete your profile” email that directs readers to a form to enter more information about themselves or through a SurveyMonkey survey that collects information about readers.
Buying lists through Postalytics platform — Postalytics offers for sale lists based on consumer behaviors, occupancy lists for particular geographic areas or business lists. Similar to email solicitations, publishers will be most successful fundraising through direct mail with contacts who are familiar with the publication and have opted in to receive updates. Contacts acquired through bought lists may be more appropriate for top-of-funnel audience growth.
Expand for preview of list purchase options
Account setup
BlueLena will create an account for publishers interested in sending direct mail through our platform. Once created, publishers will go to https://bluelena.postaladmin.com to log in and access information about their direct mail campaigns.
For account setup, clients must provide a name and phone number for the primary contact at the publication who will oversee direct mail, as well as an initial mailing address for us to input into the system.
Pricing
Letters include double sided printing by default. Single-sided printing is a few cents less per unit
Mail formats: Above is a sampling of commonly used formats. Other formats include bi-fold mailers and postcards of other sizes
Nonprofit permits
Nonprofit news organizations can enjoy discounts through USPS that are reflected in the pricing above. If a publisher is applying for a nonprofit postage permit for the first time, it may take 2 to 3 weeks for approval, so publishers should prioritize this task as soon as possible if they’re interested in sending direct mail soon. Find application instructions from USPS here. If a publisher already has a nonprofit permit, they can add the information from the permit into the direct mail platform.
Payment process
Publishers will securely store and maintain a credit card on their account for charges associated with printing and postage costs. For design services, those costs are invoiced separately by BlueLena upon client pre-approval.
Designing campaigns
BlueLena is offering a selection of standard mail templates to publishers, including:
- 8.5 x 11 letter with envelope
- 8.5 x 14 letter with envelope
- Bi-fold self mailer
- 6×11 postcard
- 6×9 postcard
When sending letters, there are also optional additions of including a custom-designed envelope, and/or to include a business-reply envelope inside the mailing, to allow for easy return of checks from donors, if applicable to the mailing.
The BlueLena direct mail platform offers an easy-to-navigate designer that publishers can use to drop in copy for a campaign, or BlueLena can insert copy for you.
Variable fields
Variable fields can be used to customize elements of a mailing, in the same way personalization tags are used in the ActiveCampaign email platforms. Variable fields can be used to include a contact’s first name as part of the greeting, to extend custom offers based on a specific contact field or acknowledge other unique characteristics of a specific contact. There can be up to 35 custom variable fields included in a mailpiece.
Contact selection
BlueLena can work with publishers to determine which contacts will be sent a direct mail campaign, based on the goals of the mailing and how it fits in with other fundraising efforts.
Engagement scoring
Before sending direct mail with BlueLena, publishers must have engagement tagging and scoring automations set up in their ActiveCampaign accounts. These automations allow publications to identify and segment contacts based on engagement (email opens, site visits). Having this set up will allow BlueLena to better target direct mail campaigns.
BlueDepth propensity model/data append
In addition to its postal address append solution, BlueLena has developed a proprietary wealth screening and propensity model that leverages third party demographics and lifestyle data, along with onsite user engagement to identify your highest value potential supporters. This is a two-step service, the first step is a one-time batch process to existing customer records, and the second step is the ongoing append and scoring to net-new contacts added to your database, and this cost is added to your monthly licensing and services invoice w/ BlueLena.
Cost (publishers are only invoiced for successfully scored customer contacts):
- Premium ($250/M) and includes 329 appended fields. Minimum charge of $1,000
- Standard ($150/M) and includes 64 appended fields. Minimum charge of $500
An additional setup fee is required for Essentials and Advanced level BlueLena publishers, but waived for Premium level publishers.
Sending
Batch campaigns
Publishers can begin sending direct mail now as batch campaigns sent at once — such as a single mailpiece sent to a segment of readers as part of an extended fundraising campaign.
Automations
BlueLena can also integrate direct mail in automated drip campaigns for publishers who want to send physical mail as part of a welcome series or other automation, sent a-la-carte and delivered to readers as they make it to a specific point in an automation.
Delivery timeline
The estimated time frames for print and delivery are:
- First Class: 3-5 business days
- Standard Class: 7-21 business days
- Nonprofit Class: 3-10 business days
After hitting the send button, it will take 2 business days to process, print, and deliver to the USPS. There is a 11am EST cut off, so if your Campaign is submitted after that time it will be considered the next business day within the print network.
Tracking results
Direct mail pieces will each have a unique QR code that uses a personalized URL or PURL to track whether a particular contact has used the QR code to visit a designated page, such as a donation/membership/subscription landing page. A tracking code installed on a publisher’s website can identify and count which contacts and how many total visited the page from the mailing. If possible based on your monetization platform, the code would also allow for tracking of conversions by counting how many contacts make it to a checkout completion (what’s the word for this?) page. Within the direct mail platform, publishers can see how many contacts were sent a piece of mail, had it delivered, used the QR code and completed a transaction.
If possible, we recommend creating a designated landing page specific to direct mail to enable our own tracking of conversions apart from the platform’s tracking code. This is something BlueLena can assist in creating.
We can also review the segment of contacts who received direct mail and review total conversions, including those that converted within a campaign timeframe but didn’t use the QR code to do so. Contacts who mail in checks will need to be accounted for manually when reviewing results.