The US postal service wants to increase rates on first-class postage, advertising mail, parcels and other services by various amounts again. The agency is facing a $7 billion loss in 2011 and these rate increases will provide an extra $2.5 billion.

So what will this mean for direct mail marketing campaigns? Well it means a lot. On one hand, this is good because the amount of direct mail advertising is reduced creating less clutter and giving your direct mail piece a better chance of being read. The cost associated with direct mail gives it an advantage over e-mail marketing. Since e-mail marketing is so cheap, the chance of your marketing message making it into consumer’s inboxes without being blocked by spam filters and protections is low.

On the other hand, now you need to increase your marketing budget for direct mail. Or do you? By doing more front end work to your database like data mining, you can actually reduce your number of recipients and now you are mailing smarter to the people who are most likely to buy from you. And with variable data printing, you can create 1-to-1 marketing and only market the services and products that appeal to that customer. The technology allows each mail piece in one print run to look completely different. The layout, images, messages, and colors can vary based on the database. The only element that has to be the same is the size so that you can take advantage of the mailing discounts.

Postal service prices are going to continue to increase. As marketers, we need to look harder at data, plan marketing campaigns carefully, and take advantage of the variable capabilities that allow us to target the individual instead of the masses.

  Click here to read more about the postal rate increase.