DIRECT MAIL GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Selling

BANT: The acronym for typical lead qualification criteria—budget, authority, need and time frame. Leads become qualified prospects if they can afford your offering, have the authority to buy, need what you are selling and are ready to act within your timeframe.

CPI (Cost Per Inquiry): A simple formula that tells you how much money you spent to generate one sales inquiry. Calculated by dividing the cost of your mailing by the number of inquiries (not sales orders) received

Cost Per Piece: Cost to produce each individual mail piece in a promotional mailing. Usually includes writing, design, printing, list rental and postage. Calculated by dividing total costs by the number of pieces mailed

CPM (Cost Per Thousand): One of the most common measurements in advertising and direct marketing. Tells you how much you must spend to communicate your sales message to one thousand people. The M in CPM stands for Mille, the Roman numeral used to represent 1,000

CPO (Cost Per Order): Similar to Cost Per Inquiry except that it measures your cost to generate a sale (an order) rather than an inquiry. Calculated by dividing the cost of your mailing by the number of sales completed

Target Marketing: A marketing strategy aimed at a particular individual or group rather than to mass media

Mass marketing: is selling to everyone through mass media channels as opposed to targeted channels like direct mail.

Printing

Address block: The format in which name and address are printed on top of letters.

Bleed: In printing, the extension of color to the edge of the page, accomplished by printing on oversized paper and trimming the excess.

Bindery: The finishing department of a print shop or firm specializing in finishing printed products.

Call to action: Copy that encourages the reader to respond, and describes how

Camera-ready copy: Print ready mechanical art.

Carrier: The envelope that contains the letter and other contents of your direct mail message. Also called a carrier envelope (CE) or outer envelope(OE)

Closed-face envelope: An envelope that does not have a window.

Co-op mailing: Offers from two or more businesses in the same envelope, with each business sharing the mailing costs.

Duplex Lasering: Laser printing on the front and back of a letter or promotional piece.

Personalization: is a method of printing an individual’s name from a mailing list on a mail piece or letter. Sometimes called variable data

Cut-size: writing or business papers that are cut to a finished size of 8.5″x11″, 8.5″x14″, or 11″x17″. Cut-size papers, like Champion Inkjet, are usually packed in reams of 500 sheets before leaving the mill.

List

CASS: An acronym for Coding Accuracy Support System, a program by which USPS approves software vendors and other information service providers to provide certified Zip+4 and address correction services to the general public. Mailing lists must be verified and corrected using CASS certified software in order to qualify for automation discounts.

Cleaning: The process of correcting or removing names from a mailing list.

Compiled list: Names and addresses that are compiled into a list from directories, newspapers, trade show registrations and other sources, to group prospects who share something in common.

Counts: This is the number of addresses that fit a certain criteria in the target market.

Customer data base: A customer database can be defined as an organized collection of records (customer data) which are systematically stored in such a way that a computer program can interrogate it.

De Dupe Identifying and consolidating duplicate names usually done in a merge/purge operation.

List: Also called a mailing list. Names and addresses of individuals or businesses who share a common characteristic (such as all being golfers, or all being purchasing managers at industrial chemical firms).

List Cleaning: The process of updating a mailing list by correcting and/or removing a name because it is no longer correct.

List Maintenance: The process of keeping mailing lists up to date

List Selection: One can further define a mailing list by targeting by additional selections such as age, income, homeowner etc.

National Change of Address (NCOA): National Change of Address (NCOA)
An address correction service that the USPS provides to mailers through USPS licensees. The licensees match mailing lists submitted to them on tape or disk against change-of-address information for the entire country from all Computerized Forwarding System units. If a match is made, NCOA can correct the address before it is printed on a mail piece.

Merge/purge: The act of combining (merging) two or more lists into one list while removing (purging) duplicate names.

Simplified address – an alternative addressing format used when delivery of identical mail is requested to every customer on a rural route or highway contract route, or to all post office box customers at a post office without city carrier service. Instead of listing the name and address of the addressee, the mailer may us “postal customer.” It may also be used by government agencies for official mail sent to all stops on city routes and post office boxes at post offices with city delivery service. In such cases, these formats may be used: “Postal Customer,” “Residential Customer,” and “Business Customer,” depending on the type of coverage requested

Suppression is a function where criteria are provided to serve as basis of eliminating duplicate or unwanted records from a list or database order.

Mailing

1^st Class Postage: In the U.S. this includes postcards, letters, large envelopes (flats) and small packages, providing each piece weighs 13 ounces or less. Delivery is given priority over second-class (newspapers and magazines), third class (bulk advertisements), and fourth-class mail (books and media packages.) First-class mail prices are based on both the shape and weight of the item being mailed.

Bar-coding is a process that formats addresses on the envelope as a bar code which allows postal machines to read the address efficiently.

Bulk Mail – The term is generally used to describe presorting mail including Presorted First-Class Mail and Standard Mail.

Destination Entry Discount – A postage discount for depositing mail at specific postal facilities (e.g., delivery unit or bulk mail center) that are closer to the final destination of the mail. )

Drop date: The calendar date when a direct mail campaign is to leave the production plant to be delivered to the post office for mailing.

Drop shipment – A mailing transported by the mailer or a private (non postal) carrier, from the point of production to a postal facility located closer to the destination

Indicia: A unique printed artwork box in the top right corner of an envelope, authorized by the post office, indicating that postage has been paid by the mailer.

Machinable: The capacity of a mail piece to be sorted by mail processing equipment

Mail Date: The date when a list user, by prior agreement with the list owner, is obligated to mail a specific list. No other date is acceptable without specific approval of the list owner.

Presort – The process by which a mailer prepares mail so that it is sorted to the finest extent required by the standards for the rate claimed. Generally, presort is performed sequentially, from the lowest (finest) level to the highest level, to those destinations specified by standard and is completed at each level before the next level is prepared. Not all presort levels are applicable to all mailings.

Saturation Postage: Defined as mailing 90% of residential addresses within the route. The addresses must also be in walk sequence order. A mailer may alternately use 75% of the total residential and business deliveries.

Seeds: Names of yourself, friends, relatives, or employees inserted in a direct mail mail out to track delivery and quality, and to safeguard against unauthorized mailings. Also called “decoys”.

Postal

Business Mail Entry Unit (BMEU) – The area of a postal facility where mailers present bulk, presorted, and permit mail for acceptance. The BMEU includes dedicated platform space, office space, and a staging area on the workroom floor.

Bulk Mail Center (BMC) – A highly mechanize mail processing plant that is part of the National Bulk Mail System. The facility distributes Standard mail (A) and Periodicals in bulk form and Standard Mail (B) in both piece and bulk form.

Carrier Route: The mail carrier’s delivery area

Carrier Route Presort - Mail that is sorted before delivery, arriving at the post office in bundles assigned to the routes that each letter carrier walks, and qualifying the mailer for discounts on postage. The mail carrier performing delivery breaks down the bundle at the delivery post office. For example, all books going to Rural Route #2, Pontiac, Illinois, would go directly to the mail carrier assigned to that route in one bundle. (Also called Enhanced Carrier Route Standard Mail.)

Destination Delivery Unit (DDU): U.S. Postal Service facility handling standard mail and periodicals addressed for delivery to one of the carrier routes served by that facility.

Entry facility: The USPS mail processing facility (e.g., bulk mail center) that serves the post office at which the mail is entered by the mailer. (Also called origin facility.)

Entry post office (EPO): – A post office at which a Centralize Postage Payment System (CPP) mailer deposits mailings to be paid for through a central account maintained at the designated post office (DPO).

Flat-Size Mail: A mail piece that exceeds one of the dimensions for letter-size mail (11-1/2 inches long, 6-1/8 inches high, 1/4 inch thick) but that does not exceed the maximum dimension for the mail processing category (15 inches long, 12 inches high, 3/4 inch thick). Dimensions are different for automation rate flat-size mail eligibility. Flat-size mail may be unwrapped, sleeved, wrapped, or enveloped.

Letter-Size Mail: A mail processing category of mail pieces, including cards, that do not exceed any of the dimensions for letter-size mail (that is, 11-1/2 inches long, 6-1/8 inches high, 1/4 inch thick).

Postage Statement: – Documentation provided by a mailer to the USPS that reports the volume of mail being presented and the postage payable or affixed, and certifies that the mail meets the applicable eligibility standards for the rate claimed.

Sectional Center Facility (SCF) – A postal facility that serves as the processing and distribution center (P&DC) for Post Offices in a designated geographic area as defined by the first three digits of the ZIP Codes of those offices. Some SCFs serve more than one 3–digit ZIP Code range.

8125- Plant-verified drop shipment (PVDS) enables origin verification and postage for shipments that a mailer transports from the mailer’s plant to destination Post Offices. Postal Service employees verify PVDS mailings for classification, rate eligibility, preparation, volume, and presort either at the mailer’s plant or at the origin Post Office serving the mailer’s plant.

3602: The a form given to a mailer by the post office as confirmation of mailing showing total pieces mailed and date accepted at the post office.