Shared mail is one area of direct mail that is showing strength, driven in part by interest in coupons on the part of price-conscious consumers and a shift from standalone direct mail formats due to rising costs. With shared mail, a printed piece is mailed with other advertisers’ flyers or inserts in one package, enabling mailers to share costs. The shared mail package is distributed to all or a specific portion of a ZIP code. Direct response marketing firm Bagwell Marketing reports that its shared mail business is growing between 10% and 15% annually while Valassis, one of the larger shared mail companies, reported a 2.1% revenue increase and 15.3% increase in the number of pieces per package during the third quarter of 2010 for its shared mail segment. “We are seeing some companies putting money into shared mail that didn’t do it before,” says John Bagwell, president at Bagwell Marketing. The company coordinates shared mail programs for local and regional businesses with the over two dozen marketing services providers that handle the fulfillment of the pieces. Mailers who may have used traditional direct mail in the past are looking to shared mail because postage and printing costs are going up, he notes. “They’ve discovered they can get almost the same results out of shared mail at significant savings compared to what they were paying for a postcard mailing to a physical address,” Bagwell reports.  Those that include a coupon or some kind of offer typically draw a better response than straightforward brand messages, he continues.