Just like that, the festive season is around the corner (again). It’s time to prepare your holiday campaigns, brief the designer on the company Christmas card and buy post-turkey comfy pants.
In the flurry of campaign planning, leaving one of the most important dates off your calendar is easy. The cut-off date for posting Christmas mail and cards.
Never fear. To make your Christmas direct mail campaigns much easier than last year, we've rounded up:
- Christmas mail cut-off dates for Australia, the United States & the United Kingdom.
- Three tips for direct mail success this holiday season.
- Three Christmas letter templates you can steal.
Christmas cut-off dates for the post in Australia
If you're sending mail from Australia, the best place to find cut-off dates is at the Australia Post website.
We’ve got an even better festive mail hack. You can skip the horrendous post office lines altogether with direct mail online. All the printing, envelope stuffing and addressing is done for you; whether you're sending 10 letters or 20,000. Talk about an early Christmas present.
Christmas post cut-off dates in 🇦🇺
When to post Christmas mail in the UK
Everyone loves a White Christmas — except the postman. The weather isn't the only thing that can delay the UK post this year. According to Royal Mail, it’s best to send your post early rather than late.
Below are the simplified economy post dates from Royal Mail. You may be able to send your mail closer to Christmas, but it will cost the most. Check their website for the full breakdown of costs and dates per country.
Christmas post cut-off dates in 🇬🇧
Surprised about the cut-off dates? Many companies are using online post to get Christmas letters from their desks to the mailbox fast. It's perfect for teams with global customers who want to send letters around the world in a few clicks.
What’s the last date for Christmas mail in the US?
In 2021, an estimated 12 billion letters, cards and packages were delivered in the US during the festive season. It's a massive job for the United States Postal Service (USPS) which is why they ask you to post early, to avoid delays.
You'll find the cut-off dates for First Class Mail. There are Priority and Express services available however they may cost more. Dive into the details here.
Mail cut-off dates in 🇺🇸
Three tips to power up your direct mail this holiday season
The festive season is like, well, Christmas for marketers. It's a golden time when most people are actively shopping and connecting with brands. In our digital world, direct mail is a great way to grab your customers' attention — especially while they're spending time at home for the holidays.
Plus, letters and postcards are low-cost and fast to produce with online mail. And, most people keep direct mail for 17 days. So, your communication will be on the fridge well into the new year.
Here are three tips to make your direct mail attention-grabbing this festive season.
1. Get personal
By simply adding someone’s name to direct mail, you can increase response rates by 135%. If you add more personalised information, it’s increased by 500%.
If you’re sending letters or postcards this holiday season, consider how to personalise communication beyond a name. You might:
- Send offers based on past purchases.
- Post a welcome card or letter once someone signs up as a subscriber.
- Reward loyal customers with surprise and delight.
- Reactivate lapsed customers with a festive postcard and coupon.
If you’re using online mail to send your letters, choose a tool with mail merge or personalisation functionality, like ClickSend Post. That way, letters are automatically personalised with data from your contact list. Easy peasy.
ClickSend’s new Mail Merge for letter campaigns feature enables you to hyper-personalize up to 20,000 letters and have them in the mail in a few clicks.
2. Add direct mail to your digital campaigns
Most businesses run a digital campaign over Christmas. But, many don’t consider adding letters and postcards to the mix too. According to USPS, businesses that combine direct mail with digital campaigns see a 60% increase in ROI.
If you're combining the two channels this Christmas, make sure you keep your communications consistent. The key message, call to action and look and feel should be the same. This boosts recognition and recall for the customer, improving the chances of purchase, sign up or conversion.
3. Integrate online posts with your business applications
The race to the holidays is filled with competing deadlines and fun parties. Win this time of year by making direct mail much easier with integrations.
Integrate an online post service with any business applications you use every day. Such as Google Docs, Microsoft Power Automate and Active Campaign. Using integrations, you can set up direct mail to send automatically. For example, when someone joins a loyalty program, makes a purchase or hasn't made a booking in a while.
Steal these customer letter templates this Christmas
Want to connect to your customers with a letter this year? Here are three letter templates you can copy into a Word document and send. Right now.
Tip: we've included the first name Mail Merge field, to automatically insert customer first names from your contact list data.
The Merry Christmas Letter
The Surprise and Delight Letter
The New Year Offer Letter
Try online direct mail for your letters Christmas
Tick one thing off your Christmas to-do list early. Send letter campaigns to your audience with ClickSend Post. We'll manage all the printing, packing and posting for you. So you can spend time on the things that matter — like handwriting a card for your Aunt Marge.
