Thinking about adding mail tracking to your roster of services? It takes extra cost and effort, so how would you pitch the value to your clients? On its website, Pitney Bowes has a great collection of case studies that show how its mail tracking service, TrackMyMail, not only benefitted the client, but actually prevented major marketing disasters. If your client faced one of these situation without mail tracking, what would they do? It’s a fair question. Here are three examples. You can check out the entire collection of case studies here.

The Case of the Missing Gift Cards

A national upscale restaurant chain was launching its largest ever direct mail campaign, with $50 gift cards going to nearly 2 million homes. Cost to the client was not only in the high-value cards, but also in the additional staffing and stocking of foods items during the promotion window.

The chain used PB’s TrackMyMail services to make sure everything moved along as planned. The promotion was going along great...except in one market. Redemption rates were near zero. Using TrackMyMail, it was determined that all of the mailers in that market had been mishandled (translation: “lost”). The mail was located and rerouted to its proper destination and the promotion ended up being most successful in the chain’s history.

When a Driver Bet No One Would Find the Mail

A casino used monthly loyalty mailings to build repeat business, and customers very much looked forward to receiving them each month. But one month, a lot of customers complained that they had not received their mailings. Where did the mailers go?

The casino checked the TrackMyMail reports. While the top-line numbers showed that a large percentage of the mail had been delivered, when the casino viewed delivery by SCF, the problem was revealed. In one SCF, despite the fact that the casino had signed shipment authorizations, there were no scans at all. It turned out, the person signing for them was not even a USPS employee. The casino’s trucking company had used a third-party delivery firm whose driver signed for the mail then dumped the palette into a warehouse instead of delivering it.

Avoiding a Date With Disaster

In advance of the prom season, a tuxedo rental company sent out thousands of mailers that included a coupon. However, the mailers were delivered much earlier than expected, and customers began showing up in stores to redeem the coupon before the local stores were even aware of the promotion. Customers just started showing up with coupons and the stores were unprepared.

Using TrackMyMail, the rental company was able to pinpoint exactly, down to the ZIP code, where the mail would hit early. With this information, it emailed stores in the affected areas and told them on a daily basis when customers would be coming in with the coupons. They were able to tell each store approximately how many people to expect, ensuring that the store had the information and inventory it needed to meet critical prom season demand.

It’s always fun to read someone else’s near disaster stories, especially when they provide on-the-ground proof that mail tracking benefits more than just high-volume mailers looking to tweak their in-home delivery dates. While each of these cases was very different, in each, you can imagine the disaster that would have ensued if mail tracking services hadn’t been used.

So if your clients think mail tracking is too much trouble and costs too much, ask them this: What would avoiding a disaster like one of these might be worth to their business?