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SmartZip is changing how we bill for Direct Mail
SmartZip is changing how we bill for Direct Mail

Why? How does it work? How does this benefit me?

Omer Hassam avatar
Written by Omer Hassam
Updated over a week ago

After looking into multiple options, along with numerous conversations with our clients, SmartZip has come to the conclusion that it is in the best interest of our business and our clients to change the way we process Direct Mail orders going forward. This change is going live on June 8th, 2020.

With that said we are sure that you have many questions which we will try to answer below. The most important thing we want to make clear is that you will not be LOSING anything, nor will we be charging more for our services. Additionally, if you have already paid for mail, a credit will be applied to your account to cover that marketing. We are simply changing how we bill for these services so that we can give you a better, clearer, and more flexible experience using our product going forward. 

How it worked before?

  1. In the past SmartZip allowed our clients to pre-pay for direct mail services. Users would have to pay for a marketing package that they had to choose upfront and would either pay upfront for the right to send that marketing or would make monthly payments towards their package.

  2. Once a package was purchased you couldn’t change anything. If you bought postcards you had postcards if you had standard postage you couldn’t change to first class even if you wanted to, and if you wanted to send a letter instead of a postcard it was a complicated process to change it. 

  3. For our clients who have purchased farms, you may notice a difference in cost for your marketing pieces now and before. Here’s why: As mentioned above marketing was setup in packages and you would prepay for marketing before you used it. To make this easier for our clients we would build the whole package for the year ahead of time and then would have you pay the average of the monthly costs for all of your marketing pieces. Now you will only pay for the marketing you use when you use it, so the total amount you pay for your marketing will be unchanged. 

Why we are making this change?

To make a complicated decision simple, we want our clients to have the freedom to choose what marketing they want to send, when they want to send it, and to only pay for that marketing when they send it.

What has changed in my account?

  1. Updated Campaign Overview UI:

We have updated the Campaign overview page to be more organized. There are now 3 sections for campaigns.

Upcoming orders: this is where any marketing campaign that is waiting for approval can be found

Pending Orders: These are your campaigns that are currently active in delivery

Order History: This is where you can view campaigns that have already been completed as well as where you can resend those campaigns if you choose to.

  1. Updated Edit options for mailers:

You now have the ability to choose which type of mailer you want to send for any mailing you do with a single click of a button. As seen in the below image if you have and Handwritten Letter selected you will be able to edit your letter and approve it for delivery at the scheduled time. You will also see exactly how much it will cost to send this letter to your audience. You can change the marketing type as well as the postage to match your preferences and your budget any time you want prior to us exporting your marketing to our print facilities. 

MOST IMPORTANTLY you will only pay for any marketing piece when we send it out for delivery

If you select the ‘Postcard’ option we will change your mailer to a postcard automatically (which also changes the price)

Once you approve your mailer you will see this message. This notice is to inform you that upon clicking the Approve button you have selected this marketing piece for delivery. We will be charging you the appropriate amount for this mailer at the time of export and you will have until the export date you have selected to unapprove and/or change the marketing piece

Once a campaign has been delivered it will move to the ‘Order History’ area in the Campaigns section of your account. Here you can view the campaigns you have already sent, and if you would like to send a campaign again, you can click on ‘Send Again’ to deliver another mailer to the same audience.

If you have any questions about these changes please contact your account manager via the Support option in your account or email us at Support@smartzip.com

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