A Guide to Getting Started With Informed Delivery

Informed Delivery allows U.S. Postal Service customers who sign up to receive emails featuring greyscale images of the address side of letter-size mail pieces that have been processed through automated equipment. 

So, why is this helpful for nonprofits? In that email, you can now add your artwork and a link to your campaign, along with your mail.dat file. Basically, customers get a digital preview of their mailbox. This means that prior to getting your mail piece, recipients can click on your link and start donating.

How Informed Delivery Works

For Informed Delivery, your content is associated with an individual mail campaign. You can run multiple campaigns at one time for a single mailing. You may also run multiple mailings and campaigns simultaneously.

Each campaign is triggered by and mapped to a single mailer identification that is used on the mail pieces. You may set a date range as well.

Mailers can also use the serial number range within the Intelligent Mail barcode to provide a greater level of personalization.

When a mail piece scans for an enrolled Informed Delivery user and the mailer identifier or serial number in the Intelligent Mail barcode is associated with an active mailer campaign, the recipient will see your customized content that you provided to the U.S. Postal Service. Learn more about the U.S. Postal Service

This is an easy way to add a channel to your direct mail and get people donating faster. Since customers have signed up to get the emails you can easily provide color artwork they will want to click on. What do you need to qualify to participate in this program? 

• Mail pieces must be automation compatible
• Mail pieces must contain a valid IMb
• You or your mail service provider must be IMb certified

This is a free program, so why not try it out and see if your donors like it?

How to Participate 

The process is simple. You create and send the normal hardcopy mail, then provide the U.S. Postal Service with your image content and web address. There are two ways you can run informed delivery campaigns:

1. 1. Ride-along image and target URL. This campaign includes the US Postal Service grayscale scanned image of the letter-size mail piece and an image provided by the mailer. This image is placed below the grayscale image in the email. The Ride-along Image is clickable and so is the “Learn More” link. These are both linked to the same URL.
   2. Representative image, ride-along image and target URL. In addition to the required Ride-along Image and URL, this dual campaign includes an image that is provided in lieu of a flat-size image or in place of the grayscale letter-size image. In this version, your images are static, they are not clickable. The images must be clearly branded and must be directly related to the hardcopy mail piece. One more thing, images are optional for letter-size mailings; but required for a flat-size mailing.

Now you are ready for the required components to actually do your campaign:

• Campaign display name.
• Campaign title.
• Campaign code.
• Campaign start date.
• Campaign end date.
• Mailer identification on piece.
• Intelligent Mail barcode serial number range.
• Image and URL.
• Images must not exceed 200 kilobytes.
• Images must be in JPEG format.
• Images must meet minimum or maximum pixel height/width, which varies per image type.
• Images must be representative of the brand or mail owner and directly related to the mail pieces.

Now you are ready to submit your Informed Delivery campaign — either via the Mailer Campaign Portal (currently in beta testing) or PostalOne! With PostalOne!, mailers enter campaigns. Are you ready to add informed delivery to your year-end fundraising?

The preceding blog was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.