The US Postal Service continues to highlight the increased punch that a combo direct mail- e-commerce strategy can deliver. Its latest example: My Macy's, the department store's localization initiative that was pushed to a new level in November 2010. It was then, USPS' Deliver Magazine reports, that the department store personalized its direct mail marketing strategy to target regional preferences and individual shopper habits.

In short, customers who made credit card purchases received catalogs that reflected their specific shopping histories - such as a specially-crafted catalog with mostly clothing for someone who has purchased a lot of clothing lately. Macy’s produced more than 30,000 catalog versions with page counts that varied from 32 to 76, Deliver Magazine said. It was more expensive but quickly became apparent to the store that it was paying off. "We mailed a traditional catalog to 10 percent of the list and saw enough of a lift in sales from the customized version in comparison that we knew we needed to continue this and get some traction behind it," Martine Reardon, Macy’s executive vice president of Marketing & Advertising, tells Deliver. It now is doing eight more similar mailings in 2011.

USPS also recently singled out Ohio-based branding agency Mlicki for a direct mail campaign that garnered a 10% response rate. This particular direct mail campaign was integrated with social media, a microsite and email marketing.

Mail Works

All of this direct mail benefit drum-beating comes as USPS launches a pilot project in which it will refund companies’ direct-mail advertising costs if they were not successful. Called The Mail Works Guarantee, 16 companies that spend at least $250 million a year on advertising, but have a limited direct mail spend, are going to participate.