Letting Your Monthly Statements Serve as Communications and Marketing Tools
by: Harry Stephens, President/CEO, DATAMATX
While many consumers don’t bother to read what they consider to be “junk mail,” they are sure to open and carefully review their monthly credit union statement. Smart marketers should be thinking of this regular monthly mailing as an incredible opportunity for credit unions to reach out to members and customers with information about their latest mortgage rates, loan offerings and other programs as well as relevant news about your organization.
Even if you don’t happen to have adequate copies of marketing materials for this on hand, software and hardware is available today to implement a “white space management” strategy, which lets you include graphics such as charts, graphs, or even color photos directly on the statement in the unused white space. This means you can spark customer inquiries about your financial products and services via attention-getting color, or by including a color sketch or photo of a home or car. Are you promoting Christmas club or Vacation club accounts? Credit or debit cards? Now you can literally show members exactly what’s available with a color graphic. It can be worth a thousand words.
By using white space management to build this information into the statement itself, you save the time and expense of designing and producing a separate marketing piece. And this type of embedded information can be ready to go into the next month’s statement, just in time to reach customers when their interest is high for limited-time or seasonal promotions.
Fill the envelope
A further, important source of encouragement for launching a white space management program is the United States Postal Service (USPS). Although the USPS increased the postage rate for First Class Presorted mail in January, at the same time it also announced what I like to call the “2-4-1” policy. This means when businesses mailers send out First-Class Mail Presort pieces weighing between one and two ounces, the second ounce is now free. In the past, the difference between mailing a First Class 1-ounce envelope and a 2-ounce envelope was 12.5 cents. Today, when this second free ounce is multiplied in volume, it means an average 23 percent reduction in postage.
That second ounce can accommodate a flyer or brochure featuring seasonal promotions and/or new financial products and services, or even a business reply card or envelope to help improve response rates. So while you may pay slightly more for mailing that First Class envelope, now you can do a lot more with it. Even figuring in that slight increase for the first ounce, the free second ounce is a trade-off that can help keep your costs in line when it comes to getting the word out about promotions and services you have to offer your members.
Improved communications
Credit unions enjoy the reputation of being “user-friendly” (and sometimes even more trustworthy) than bigger, more impersonal financial institutions. This is often due to more personal, one-on-one customer communications. The “2-4-1” second ounce free ruling, combined with a white space management program, presents an important opportunity to make your credit union’s regular statement mailings work harder. At the same time, you can eliminate the expense and effort of planning, designing, producing and sending out a separate mailing. Although deploying a white space management strategy does require some specialized skills and equipment, if you’re reluctant to invest in an in-house capability, these services are readily available through outside vendors. Since these vendors offer this type of service to a broad clientele, you may find it more cost effective to work with them than to try to do it all yourself.
Although a rate increase is still a rate increase, and business mailers may not be entirely happy about that, consider that in effect, the new rates—including the free second ounce—now offers a First Class opportunity to expand your ability to reach out and touch customers with new ideas and offerings, and for a relatively low additional cost.
Harry Stephens is President/CEO and founder of DATAMATX, one of the nation’s largest privately held, full-service providers of printed and electronic billing solutions. As an advocate for business mailers across the country, Stephens is actively involved in several postal trade associations. He serves on the Executive Board of the Greater Atlanta Postal Customer Council, Major Mailers Association (MMA), PCC Advisory Committee (PCCAC), and the Board of the National Postal Policy Council (NPPC). He is a board member of The Imaging Network Group (INg), an association for Transactional and Direct Mail Marketing service bureaus. As an expert on high-volume print and mail, he has frequently been asked to speak to various USPS groups. You can contact Harry Stephens at hstephens@datamatx.com.
