Direct Mail Production Solutions
Direct mail production encompasses seven discrete processes
Production schedule development
Every project needs a schedule to keep the process on track. QCT knows that you must work backward from your mail date to design a schedule that is achievable.
Creative
QCT provides full-scale creative services in-house, with a team of gifted writers and visionary designers who will turn your goals into innovative campaigns to energize and convert your audiences.
QCT will review factors such as:
- Size
- Stock
- Colors
- OSE Fit
- IMb
- Fold
- Copy
Data Processing
QCT will evaluate the following:
- Seeds
- Counts/codes
- NCOA
- Salutation
- Ask String
- CD Append
- Foreign records
Personalization
QCT will apply best practices when it comes to:
- Form delivery
- Maximum address lines
- Laser type
- Ask string
- Minimum/maximum asks
- Truncation
Mailshop
QCT will consider factors such as:
- U.S. Postal Service permits
- Postage request
- Type of postage
- Folds
- Insertion order
- Match mailing
- Mail date
Postal Optimization
QCT can ensure that you’re mailing your campaign at the most economic rate. There are multiple ways to mail, depending on size and distribution. QCT will determine the best option that ensures speedy delivery for the least amount of money possible, such as:
- Commingle
- NDC
- SCF
- Combination
- Co-palletization
QCT can handle one or all steps in the process for you, and will negotiate best supplier prices. Plus, our highly refined quality control process assures that your mailing goes out without a hitch.
Our Digital Project Offerings
QCT offers wide-ranging digital solutions. It is no exaggeration to say we offer just about every digital service a nonprofit might need. QCT can code your mobile email template, perform mobile optimization or create an email template or donation form from scratch. We will make sure that the code works and that digital communications render properly across diverse browsers and email devices. We can set up automated messaging series, triggered by an online behavior or a specific action, such as signing up for emails or giving a gift. Our auto-triggered series cultivate your donors and initiate up-sale activities, avoiding numerous manual launches.
On the other end of the spectrum, QCT can create and execute an entire fundraising campaign, performing every step from creative development to coding to implementation. QCT can even oversee website creation or execute a fundraising audit of digital assets and then build out the plan, recommendations and assets based on the audit findings.
We are code experts. Whether it is Javascript, Convio, Luminate, Salsa, Engaging Networks, Avectra, SalesForce or any other code, we can achieve the end result you desire.
A partial listing of our services includes
- Email, mobile email template development
- Mobile optimization for donation forms or online web forms
- Digital production for email campaigns, including auto-triggered campaigns, and online acquisition campaigns
- Digital and website audits, culminating in recommendations and asset development
Free Consultation
Our experts are happy to connect with you to hear about your direct marketing goals and talk about how we can help. Fill out the form below and a member of our team will be in touch.
Integration and Analysis
Because QCT can obtain tracking information from the U.S. Post Office on your direct mail campaigns, we can coordinate the timing of subsequent email launches. So, for example, if you want to launch an email campaign 3 to 4 days after direct mail delivery, QCT can not only handle the direct mail and digital production, but also assist cross collaboration of the channels to your specification.
QCT also offers tag and target campaigns on the digital side of the house. These campaigns take your direct mail campaign as an input file, find the recipients online and “cookie” them. Then, we can serve them targeted display ads both pre- and post in-home delivery.
Data Services
QCT Data Services team was developed in January 2017 as a way to process data more accurately, consistently, faster, and in a more unified manner versus relying on outsourced suppliers and mailshops. The QCT Data Services Team works directly with the QCT Production Team to complete all data processing steps from data receipt to delivering hang-ready production files to our partner mailshops. We have invested in the technology and experience to be able to manage all processing in-house; whereas many providers and mailshops rely on outsourcing certain functions to other providers, such services as NCOA, Deceased Processing and Postal Logistics. Additionally, each member of the team has 10+ years of experience in data processing, including but not limited to: data hygiene, custom programming, postal processing, postal logistics and quality assurance.
The department’s main source of business is processing direct mail data files; which includes general data hygiene, postal processing, standard field builds, postal logistics, mail tracking, and standard reporting. However, we also offer Email Change of Address, Email Appends, Demographic and Geographic Appends, ad-hoc reporting, source coding, and campaign data pulls via our client’s CRM Platform and a number of other services.
Since conception, the team has designed client-specific workflows and SOPs; which has allowed CCAH to reduce their overall campaign timelines, outsourcing costs, and overall data quality. Furthermore, we have worked with CCAH/QCT to proactively conduct data quality audits; which in many cases has uncovered major cost savings due to discovering and suppressing duplicate contacts, deceased contacts, and undeliverable contacts that would have otherwise been mailed. For one particular client, we found a savings of $10,000-$14,000 per campaign (300,000-500,000 average campaign size). Print, production, outgoing and incoming postage costs were drastically reduced due to the number of duplicate, deceased and undeliverable contacts they were previously mailing.
Below is a list of the standard services offered by QCT Data Services.
- General File Conversion
- Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) Processing
- National Change of Address (NCOA) Processing
- Unlike many of our competitors who only offer 0-18 Month Change of Address updates, our standard is 0-48 months. On average, we are capturing 1% more move updates by extending our updates out to 48 months. (On a mailing of 100,000, 1,000 more donors would receive their mail versus it being returned or destroyed by the USPS)
- Proprietary Change of Address (PCOA) Processing
- Using a third party list that includes names/addresses of those who have moved and not reported a forwarding address to the USPS. The list is created from a number of sources such as: utility companies, tax records, credit bureaus, and magazine subscribers
- Suppression (kill file) Matching
- Deceased Processing
- Basic Merge/Purge
- Intra File Deduping
- Source Coding
- Scanline Check Digit Appends
- Nth Selects
- Congressional Appends (Senate and/or House)
- Custom Chapter Table Appends
- Mail Tracking
- QCT tracks all mail that is processed through our Data Services team
- Custom Ad-Hoc Reporting
- Custom programming
- NCOA Move / Decease File Returns
- Input / Output Counts & Dumps
- All Postal Processing Files
- Mail.dats
- CASS Certificate
- NCOA Certificate
- Postage Statement
- Tray & Pallet Tags
- Presorted Files
- Twice a year QCT offers an E-Append / ECOA gang run which allows CCAH’s clients to take advantage of deep savings due to a combined high volume quantity discount
QCT Data Services also offers the ability to pull data directly from any CRM Platform, which is then used to create/build campaign lists. The overall goal of having QCT manage data pulls, segmentations, and source coding is to create an ease of process for our clients by eliminating the worry of deadlines and internal staffing resources. The standard list build process includes the following steps:
- Removing all Omits
- Removing Required Suppression Records
- Nth Selects
- Package Segmentations
- Source Code Builds
- File Exports to CCAH’s sFTP & Client’s Cager’s FTP
- CRM Campaign Creation
- CRM Source Code Creation