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Not Just Cool Anymore!
Mail tracking goes to the bottom line.

Try as it might, Planet Code® tracking just doesn’t have the sex appeal it did a few years ago. Once the province of the “in” crowd – the early adopters – mail tracking is just becoming a means of improving operations and increasing profits. Nothing very sexy about that, is there?

To catch up those who may not have been paying attention the last couple of years, a Planet Code® is an additional barcode you can print on a mail piece that identifies you, the mailer, and the mailing, whenever it passes through a barcode sorter at the Postal Service. The Postal Service uses that barcode to send you information on where your mail is as it travels. Using this data, you can know – and tell your customers – where their mail is, and when it is being delivered. The Planet Code® is very similar to the postnet code we all know and love – just the long and short bars have been reversed. Just as you can dazzle guests at cocktail parties by reading the barcodes on their mail today, you’ll be able to doubly wow them by reading their Planet® Codes too! (I get invited to surprisingly few cocktail parties lately…)

Planet Code® tracking falls under the auspices of a Postal Service program called Confirm. There are two components to the program: Destination Confirm tracks outbound mail, letting you know when the mail is reaching its destination; Origin Confirm tracks inbound mail, effectively telling you when someone has put a piece to you in the mail stream – when the check is really in the mail.

Up to this point destination Confirm has gotten most of the press, mostly because it’s easy. Pick one Planet Code®, print it on all of the pieces in a mailing – kind of like a key code in barcode form – and mail it. Data comes back from the Postal Service with the PLANET and postnet codes so you can pretty well identify unique addresses. The technology has never been quite perfect: Not every piece gets scanned (somewhere between 75% and 98%); It’s tough to tell one piece from another if they go to the same postnet; The data can be hard to work with – there’s a lot of interpretation to do. Even so, some great applications have been found. Retailers in particular have latched onto the technology, and use it to tell when sale ads are delivered around their multiple locations. With PLANET codes they can spot delivery problems while the mail is still in the stream, and work with the Postal Service to find and deliver mail. They have also been able to better know when to drop their mailing for optimal results. No more rules of thumb about how long mail delivery takes – retailers can now know, and time their mailings accordingly. Getting mail delivered at the right time can dramatically increase the effectiveness of retail advertising. If you work with retail clients, Planet Code® tracking may be a good offer to enhance the value of your services.

Other applications have popped up for Planet® Codes that can reduce costs dramatically.

• Many companies offering extended automobile warranties have found that the response rates of their direct mail is greatly increased by follow up call exactly five days after the mail hits. They are so certain of this relationship they would mail their offers first-class just so they could know when their mail got delivered, and time the calls appropriately. They weren’t using first-class for speed, just for predictability. Using Planet® Codes they are able to mail standard and know even more precisely when their mail is delivered. You can imagine the savings being able to switch from first-class to standard rates.
• A political consultant has sent out voter registration mailings for years. They send a mailing to (hopefully) like-minded constituents, and encourage them to register to vote. They even include a personalized postcard addressed to the local election board so the prospect could just sign the card and drop it in the mail. The problem is, that they had no way of knowing what kind of response rate they got. The reply went to the election board, not to them. Using origin PLANET codes we were able to assign a unique Planet Code® number to each voter registration card and identify who had registered and when. This allowed the consultant to be able to quantify their response rates for the first time, and to work on improving their mailings. Think of other applications your clients may have where the reply goes to a third party. Now with PLANET codes you can give them response rates where they had none before.
• Every day one of the phone companies gets a file of everyone who put their payment in the mail on the previous day. This is done using origin Planet® Codes, with a unique Planet Code® printed on each remittance device. The phone company uses the list of inbound payments to suppress their dunning calls for the day, as well as their late payment notices. If the check is in the mail, why spend the money and generate the ill will that collection efforts can create. Inbound tracking requires a bit more work, including putting a window in the reply envelope, but the savings can be powerful. Any mailer doing billing mailings would be wise to look into origin Planet Code® tracking.

Countless other applications for Planet Code® tracking are popping up every day. One insurance company uses Planet® Codes to track cancellation notices and re-mail those that don’t get delivered. Credit card issuers use the same application to track replacement credit cards and identify possible fraud or stolen cards. Nonprofits know how many people have responded to their appeals every day. The uses are endless.

Going forward, the Next Big Thing in Planet® Codes will be the four-state barcode. Today’s postnet and PLANET barcodes are known as two-state – they have tall and short bars. Four-state codes have tall bars and short bars in three different positions, sort of like stalagmites and stalactites (and some other “ite” that floats in the middle…) In the same number of bars as today’s barcodes four-state codes will allow 31 digits of information, enough digits to uniquely number each piece of mail. When that comes about, expect to see more than just mail tracking available in that barcode. Sadly, the four-state code requires an encoder to create, so you may need to find a new way to amaze your friends at cocktail parties…