Join us at National Postal Forum 2025! 3 Apr 2025, 9:48 am

We’ll be boots down in Nashville and ready to rock with you!

National Postal Forum is coming to Nashville, and IWCO is taking center stage with direct mail insights, an expert workshop and TWO bands performing at NPF’s talent showcase!

Head on down to the Gaylord Opryland Convention Center, April 27-30 to get a front row seat to the best in direct mail.

VISIT US AT BOOTH 334 TO:

• Learn how IWCO can turn your direct mail performance up to 11
• See how Mail-Gard Disaster Recovery makes sure your mailings never miss a beat
• Get insider tips on optimizing your postal spend AND your guitar solos
• Connect with our industry pros to learn how you can transform your results

DON’T MISS OUR WORKSHOP:

Mining Insights Faster to Boost Direct Mail Performance

On Sunday 4/27 at 2:45pm, learn how you can harness data, analytics, and AI to greatly improve direct mail performance, from IWCO’s own Brian Cook and Bob Rosser.

Fill out the form below to let us know you’ll be there!

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Leveraging Predictive Analytics and Hyper Personalization to Drive Engagement and Marketing ROI 5 Feb 2025, 8:51 pm

Today’s consumers are bombarded with information. But what if you could cut through the noise and reach the right audience? Our latest Insights Report explores how combining hyper-personalization with predictive data in your direct mail campaigns can help you reach the right audience with the right message, to boost engagement and your marketing ROI. 

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Breaking Through the Digital Noise – Infographic 5 Feb 2025, 8:45 pm

Your marketing audience is buried under information clutter. What’s the key to reaching them? Using direct mail with hyper-personalization and real-time data from IWCO. Find insightful statistics and see how IWCO can help you break through the noise with our infographic below.

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Mail-Gard® Provides Seamless Disaster Response Services During Hurricane Milton 26 Nov 2024, 2:23 pm

When disaster strikes, even the best business models will face considerable disruption. And when critical business functions—such as print-to-mail services—are at stake, it is essential to have a reliable disaster recovery plan. In these situations, you can depend on Mail-Gard® to ensure delivery of your critical business documents, keeping compliant and solvent.

The Impact of Hurricane Milton

In early October, Hurricane Milton approached Florida as “an extremely dangerous category 5 hurricane,” according to the National Weather Service. By the time it made landfall near Siesta Key on October 9, 2024, it was predicted to cause major damage throughout most of the state. Despite being downgraded to a category 3 storm, the impact to east central Florida was significant. Hurricane-force wind gusts and an outbreak of at least 19 confirmed tornadoes damaged many homes and businesses, downing trees, and power lines. Rainfall of 10 to 15 inches led to severe, localized flooding in these areas.

Preparing for the Threat to Critical Communication

In preparation for Hurricane Milton, the Mail-Gard team immediately shifted its production from a Monday – Friday schedule to a 24/7 operating schedule to meet any potential customer needs during this crisis period. This included expanding the schedules of the operations team, data programmers, and account managers who worked day and night to ensure seamless execution of our clients’ disaster recovery plans.

The Mail-Gard team tracked the storm’s path and identified four key Florida customers who may potentially need disaster recovery services. The team then reviewed these customers’ disaster recovery plans and reached out to them to prepare before the potential disaster hit. Of those four customers, two ended up calling the Mail-Gard 1-800 number with disaster declarations and one required emergency assistance.

From a production standpoint, these declarations resulted in 1,123,811 images and 506,207 packages produced during the event on six different types of production platforms.

100% Delivery—100% Customer Satisfaction

Mail-Gard met all expectations and worked with the customer to mirror their print to mail process at our facility. The emergency declaration resulted in 100% delivery of critical communication pieces for our customer. And, equally important, the customer was pleased with the results of the declaration and provided positive feedback.

The Hurricane Milton response also shines a light on why we conduct thorough advance testing with each customer. This helps us to become more familiar with the ins and outs of their print-to-mail processes and better partner with our customers during any potential disaster recovery event.

Trust Mail-Gard to See You Through Any Disaster

Mail-Gard offers critical communications recovery for businesses in several regulated industries. A pioneer in print-to-mail disaster recovery services, we have had a 100% success rate for declaration support since 1996. We maintain a fully-secure, dedicated recovery facility and a range of technical solutions, delivered by seasoned employees, to ensure business continuity. We review disaster recovery plans for each customer and conduct our Proof-of-Concept testing to ensure that we are well versed in your print-to-mail processes.

Whether it is a natural disaster, an operational recovery due to downed equipment, a cybersecurity threat, an employee work stoppage, utility failure, or even a scheduled equipment update, you can count on our immediate support.

Visit mail-gard.com or contact us to learn more about Mail-Gard and disaster recovery planning.

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IWCO Expands Capabilities with New Partnership and Investments in Mail-Gard® Division 19 Nov 2024, 2:22 pm

CHANHASSEN, Minn., Nov. 19, 2024 – IWCO, a leader in data-driven direct mail solutions, is excited to announce its critical communications division, Mail-Gard®, has entered a strategic partnership with a major healthcare provider. This collaboration underscores IWCO’s position as a trusted direct marketing partner in critical communications business continuity, disaster recovery, and print-to-mail outsourcing services.

In response to the growing demand for robust disaster solutions, IWCO is making significant investments in advanced print-to-mail equipment, enhancing Mail-Gard’s ability to provide seamless business recovery services. This enhancement highlights IWCO’s commitment to delivering secure, state-of-the-art critical communications solutions that meet the unique needs of highly regulated industries.

“Our partnership with this leading healthcare provider and our ongoing investments in new technology represent IWCO’s dedication to supporting client resilience and operational restoration,” said Ken McDonald, Chief Production Officer at IWCO. “With Mail-Gard, our clients can be confident in their partnership with IWCO to support their most critical communication needs.”

Mail-Gard, a pioneer in print-to-mail disaster recovery services since 1996, supports Fortune 1000 companies and government entities with unmatched print-to-mail services. With a 100% success rate for declaration support, Mail-Gard safeguards vital mailings against natural disasters, operational disruptions, and other unforeseen events. IWCO is committed to delivering personalized, data-driven direct mail solutions that drive client success and uphold business continuity.

About IWCO

IWCO is a leading provider of data-driven performance marketing services that has served the direct marketing industry for more than 50 years, transforming direct mail for better results.  From data and analytics to hyper-personalization and mail optimization, IWCO leverages in-house expertise and leading-edge technology to deliver direct mail campaigns that drive customer acquisition and maximize Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI).  To access the latest insights on the power of direct marketing, visit www.iwco.com. Instant Web, LLC (dba “IWCO”) is a privately held Delaware corporation. Cerberus Capital Management and related entities control 100% of Instant Web, LLC.

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Maximizing Customer Experience with Generative AI 13 Dec 2023, 2:00 pm

In today’s fast-paced business landscape, incorporating generative AI has become increasingly enticing. Harnessing generative AI’s capabilities for improving customer experience is an exciting challenge that many organizations are beginning to explore. David Klempke, Director of Client Marketing Technology Solutions at IWCO, shares three practices marketers can adopt to leverage generative AI to enhance customer experiences and how we adopt these practices at IWCO.

Practice 1: Develop a Customer Experience Strategy

Chatbot augmentation is a common customer experience application. AI’s capabilities extend far beyond chat functions and can improve various customer touchpoints. However, given the power and novelty of generative AI, I recommend proceeding with caution. Start by using AI to create responsive messaging that can assist marketing and customer service teams before introducing AI-powered chat tools externally for customers.

IWCO partners with clients to enhance multichannel response marketing and we’re working to securely and appropriately embrace generative AI to enhance our services. We focus heavily on hyper-personalization, delivering content tailored to individual characteristics to maximize ROI. We are currently collaborating with industry-leading CCM/CXM technologies from Messagepoint that incorporate generative AI capabilities into their customer communications management application, helping us to deliver highly personalized content to our clients every day.

The challenge lies in creating communications for clients in various industries, each requiring distinct marketing approaches. This is especially true in highly regulated industries like healthcare. In these instances, we can augment traditional methods of messaging creation by using generative AI to simplify and scale the task of adjusting customer correspondence for reading level, sentiment, demographic characteristics, and vernacular, ensuring that the right message reaches the right audience through the right channel.

Practice 2: Deploy a Proof-of-Concept Project

Incorporating a proof-of-concept (POC) is a standard step in adopting new technology, but with LLM-based technologies (Large Language Models), it demands a unique approach. Data governance and skilled resources are critical. Data sources for AI messaging should be carefully chosen to mitigate risks, which could include proprietary data exposure and copyright infringement. A unified content model with tags and metadata helps organize data effectively. Make sure you bring together an implementation team with diverse expertise, including business subject matter experts trained to create trusted prompts for generative AI engines.

At IWCO, my team consists of both technical and business experts working closely with client partners to ensure an agile and effective workflow. Technical specialists handle prompt creation and application architecture. Data sources must be flexible to support various client industries, and IWCO employs unified content modeling to determine the most effective imagery and messaging for each client’s specific needs.

Practice 3: Apply Learnings through a Feedback Loop

The success of a POC hinges on learning and iterating over time. Generative AI, like all AI technologies, benefits from continuous refinements. Feedback from multiple sources, including beta users and human participants, should be applied to the generative AI model to ensure it evolves and matures before a production implementation.

Our ongoing objective is to fine tune tone and sentiment while meeting client requirements. It’s important to understand industry-specific nuances, as certain events or circumstances can drastically influence the tone and sentiment required in customer communications. Integrating generative AI into this process can deliver significant time savings, reducing change management from weeks to days or even hours.

Incorporating human review into generative AI remains essential to prevent bias, copyright issues, or the leakage of proprietary information. Client feedback and satisfaction determines the success and future of generative AI at IWCO.

In conclusion, adopting generative AI to improve customer experience is a journey that organizations can adopt to their advantage. By following these key practices, marketers can successfully integrate generative AI that maximizes ROI and enhances customer interactions. With the right strategy, a thoughtful POC, and an effective feedback loop, generative AI represents boundless potential.

Contact us to learn how IWCO Direct can assist your organization to maximize your customer experience with Generative AI.

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We donate because we want to, not because we need to. 19 Sep 2023, 2:01 pm

Why do we donate? Whether it’s an individual or an organization, we donate because it feels good to give back, not because we need to.

Donating is more than a transaction; it’s an engagement and an opportunity to be a part of something bigger. As a result, donors seek a personal relationship with nonprofits. But this can be difficult in a hyper-connected world, where donors are consistently being asked to give through online channels like social media, digital communication, and email. The noise can be deafening and the opportunity to develop that relationship can be lost. How can your cause rise above the clatter?

Let’s go back to our mailbox.

I realize that this statement may elicit several eye rolls. Traditional nonprofit direct mail is often antiquated, cumbersome and filled with mailing labels you will never use. While variable address and salutation fields can give the appearance of personalization the content and creative can still feel static. This type of letter is not an effective way to start a relationship.

However, a timely, hyper-personalized, direct mail communication that acknowledges your audience and their engagement with your nonprofit could be the relationship nudge needed to separate your cause from the others.

IWCO’s investment in digital print, combined with a robust data platform and dynamic content management, enables our nonprofit partners and agencies to create segmented, personalized  campaigns all within one print stream, maximizing production and minimizing cost.

A digital print platform creates the opportunity for an omnichannel approach for your marketing strategy. As nonprofits approach the busiest giving season, which tends to be towards the end of Q4, direct mail correspondence can build on and increase the impact of an online action. For instance, a donor who visits your site but leaves before donating can receive a targeted appeal reminding them of the importance of that donation to your cause. Digital print accelerates in-home delivery to make this appeal timely and relevant.

One-to-one variability enables nonprofits to test different ask arrays, data, and design elements. For example, an Animal Welfare organization can segment creative with a dog or a cat to align with owner preference. Food Bank consortiums can create dynamic content and creative unique to each region they serve. Additional demographic attributes can be incorporated at the time of print. Presence of children, political affiliation, and net worth are just examples of how a nonprofit might modify their message to resonate with each donor. This variability, incorporated into one print stream creates a personalized message without increasing your postal spend.

Direct mail is an essential part of any multi-channel campaign and is the most responsive lead generation channel when coupled with dynamic content and data-driven audiences. Your nonprofit cause is dynamic as well. Digital print enables nonprofits to engage donors with the right message, to the right audience in a relevant, timely manner, enabling your story and impact to evolve and grow alongside our changing world.

Let’s tell your story! Our team at IWCO are experts at combining the right audience and content into the perfect message. To learn more, please contact me at Heather.Schichtel@iwco.com.

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Making Better Happen for Mortgage Marketers 26 Jul 2023, 4:00 pm

Marketers in the mortgage space may find it harder than ever to reach their sales goals. To combat increasing costs (paper and postage) and lower consumer interest in refinancing at today’s higher rates, consider the following techniques to make your direct mail and companion marketing efforts work harder for you:

Predictive Analytics

By utilizing predictive analytics you can use the vast amount of available data like past purchases, credit scores/history, localized housing market trends, home values, demographics, and other consumer behavior data to improve the effectiveness of your mortgage marketing. Data analytics that could include customer segmentation, look-alike models, propensity modeling, data mining, and Business Intelligence (BI) indicators can predict future outcomes and streamline your targeting to those who will not only respond but convert.

Relevant Messaging

Once ready to develop your creative, the more you can make your message relevant, with personalization that is highly crafted for each individual, the more it will resonate with your audience and increase your response, conversions, and ROI. Not only can the message and imagery be highly targeted at the individual level, but so can the actual components of the mail package itself. Smart selective inserters and inline personalization will allow you to take your segmented and rank-ordered list and customize which envelopes, letters, and inserts each consumer receives―all in one postal stream. No need for multiple mailstreams that would increase your production and postage costs.

Robust Testing

Not able to beat your control? Try multivariate (MVT) testing. MVT offers an efficient and effective way to look at the interaction of product, offer, and audience segmentation. You’ll find the exact mix of elements in your control that are truly driving the response, and you can do it without affecting your high density postage rates.

And remember, continuous testing will give you an edge over your competition by staying ahead of the “package fatigue” caused by response degradation due to the lack of rotation of control champions. It will help you out-think, out-run, and out-perform your competitors.

To take advantage of IWCO’s decades of experience Making Better Happen℠ for mortgage marketers, contact our experts today.

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Analysis and Scientific Testing Drive Successful Direct Mail Strategy 24 May 2023, 4:00 pm

Direct mail strategy can be a highly effective marketing tool when properly executed. To improve results for direct mail campaigns by incorporating analytics and scientific testing, marketers can follow these five key steps:

1. Define your target audience: Analytics always comes first. Don’t waste money communicating to the wrong prospects. When creating a direct mail campaign, it is essential to define your target audience clearly. Analyzing the demographic data, geography, purchasing history, interests, and habits of the audience will give insights on the content to be used for the campaign. Are you speaking to your target audience in the best and most efficient way possible?
   
   This means looking at how the audience is subdivided. Personas should be developed using actual data sets. Modeling will determine the response, conversion, and value component of the universe. You can then cross-tab your universe with demographic, psychographic, and behavioral information. Combining these, you can create a custom or combination of custom and segmented analytics solutions to create your personas. These personas can then be mapped all the way down to a single individual since they are built bottom-up.
   
   
2. Develop your message: Develop a message that resonates with the audience you are targeting. The message should be clear and concise, highlighting the unique benefits of the product or service being offered.
   
   The questions to ask when developing your message: What does your audience really care about? What’s going to motivate them? What offer should you give them and how often should you talk to them? What are the best channels to communicate to them? Will they engage, respond, and buy?
   
   
3. Hyper-personalize your content: Hyper-personalizing the content of direct mail campaigns to the individual recipient using strategies like high-speed digital printing can increase engagement and response rates. Data and modeling can make it possible to speak to your audience on a 1:1 level, driving increased engagement (response, conversion, sales) with your mailpiece.
   
   
4. Use graphics and creative design: Analyzing the creative design of each direct mail piece is also a key component of the approach. Including graphics and creative designs can help to make the content more visually appealing and memorable. Craft a compelling, benefit-driven headline that grabs your audience’s attention and engages them to read more. Focus on benefits, and visually break up your copy to draw the reader’s eye to what you’d like them to read. Ensure the Call-to-Action (CTA) is very visible and clearly communicates how to respond.
   
   
5. Test and refine your approach: Apply analytics and scientific creative testing throughout the campaign. Techniques such as multivariate testing (MVT), can leverage digital print production to test a wide variety of variables like images, print, messaging, and data input in a single campaign. Ongoing testing helps you out-think, out-run, and out-perform your competition and will help you ensure your direct mail campaigns are optimized for success.
   

Incorporating these best practices into your marketing efforts will help you reach your customers and prospects at the right time in the right channel with the right message―every time! Reach out to IWCO’s team of marketing experts today to improve the success of your next direct mail campaign.

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Direct Mail Offers a Lightbulb Moment for Email-Weary Consumers 10 May 2023, 4:00 pm

When I explain to people what IWCO does, there’s often a bit of head-scratching when I get to our mail services. There’s an automatic assumption that mail is a dying marketing channel. This happened just recently, when I went to my sister’s house to watch a hockey game with her and my brother-in-law, Mike. (I had been at their house during the last game, and so it was now imperative that I didn’t upset the mojo and, as my brother-in-law Mike texted: “It’s on us to will this team to victory. We didn’t ask to do it, but now we have to. We have the entire state of Minnesota on our shoulders—we can’t let down our neighbors and our communities just because we are tired or have to work tomorrow. It’s bigger than us.”)

Before puck drop, the conversation turned to work and how they’d recently heard of one company getting rid of marketing mail. I waved it off and said that was not totally surprising, but that it wouldn’t last. Companies often try to save costs by cutting mail, but they always come back. It’s just not sustainable to run effective direct marketing campaigns without having mail in the mix. Mike balked a bit.

“Really? I think it makes sense. What young kid is looking at their mail?” (Note: anyone under the age of 45 is a “young kid” to Mike.) The answer is a lot of them.

Mail Is Anticipated and Effective, Especially Among Younger Generations

In fact, a whopping 43% of Gen Z and 36% of Millennials collect their mail everyday it’s delivered (an additional 16% of Gen Z and 18% of Millennials check their mailbox 3-5 times a week).

So, fine—they check their mail. But are they really buying anything from those mailers? Oh, you bet.

In a 2022 Keypoint Intelligence consumer survey, 54% of Gen Z made a purchase from direct mail and 64% of Millennials made a purchase, as reported by What They Think. Gen X and Boomers still made purchases from mail, although at lower rates (43 and 26%, respectively). Mike seemed unsure about it all, commenting on all the social media ads and online shopping options that are almost second nature to many of us. While it’s true that younger generations are more likely to engage with digital ads (44% of Gen Z vs. 31% of Boomers), mail was clearly the superior advertising function, blowing purchasing rates from digital out of the water across all generations.

Why Email Alone Isn’t Enough

Mike was shocked, until I put it in perspective. The average office worker receives 121 business-related emails a day and spends 15.5 hours a week going through them. But that’s just at work. More than 306 billion emails are sent every day, and of that, an estimated 36% are related to advertising.

With 25.4% checking their email more than 5 times a day and some checking it 20 times a day, there is severe email overload. Compare that to the average 1.25 marketing mailpieces seen each day, and you can see which marketing message will get the most attention. It was a bit of a light-bulb moment for Mike, who realized that he never reads the emails that his insurance company sends, but always opens their mail because he knows it must be important.

Of course, a combination of marketing channels will always give you the best of both worlds, and the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns will be impacted by how targeted your lists can get and what kind of personalization you can incorporate. There are a lot of factors in play that make a direct marketing campaign successful, and mail is almost always a part of that.

Want to learn more about how direct mail can improve your marketing campaign’s ROI? Contact us. We’re here to help.

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