Modernize your direct mail with Smart Mail House

Whether you’re sending borrowers required disclosures or keeping them in the loop with their upcoming payments, an effective communication strategy is vital to any credit operation. But while most credit providers recognize the value of digital communication tools like SMS or email, many overlook physical mail as a tool for reaching borrowers.

Perhaps their real problem hasn’t been with direct mail per se, but with the cumbersome tools many credit providers use to send it.

In this article, we’ll dig into how direct mail compares with other communication mediums, and how credit providers can modernize their mail systems to stay efficient and effective.

How physical mail compares against digital mediums

We’ve written before about why and how physical mail is effective. Our article on how to increase account performance with mail cites data from LoanPro clients, showing a 22% increase in collections through physical mail.

In another article, we drew comparisons to other mediums like email or SMS, highlighting industry-wide metrics on ROI for direct mail. Each communication channel has its place—and we’ll go on record in favor of a mixed approach, leveraging communication analytics to determine which medium is most effective for each borrower in different situations—but physical mail offers key differentiators from digital channels:

• Keep borrowers engaged. While digital mediums can reach borrowers instantly, they’re also easy to ignore. (Wondering how likely it is that an email will get noticed? Do a quick poll of your coworkers or friends asking how many unread emails they’ve got in their inbox.) Physical mail is a palpable reminder, usually opened when a borrower is at a desk and has time to immediately make a payment.
• Effective onboarding. Many credit providers opt to send a physical onboarding letter, even if they use digital channels for the majority of their customer communications. Borrowers will be set up from the start for steady repayment with a physical copy of their payment schedule, contact information, and details about repayment options.
• Drive on-time payments. Many banks and credit unions have customer-friendly bill pay tools, where borrowers just scan a photo of their statement and their FI does the rest. That level of convenience is a huge advantage, even for tech-savvy borrowers, and could be the difference between on-time payments and delinquency.
• Maintain communication compliance. Many laws mandating disclosures also require paper mail as a communication option. A reliable, efficient mailing tool makes the difference between easily handling compliance requirements and getting bogged down in red tape.

How Smart Mail House modernizes direct mail

Direct mail offers distinct advantages for credit operations, but not all mail systems are made equal. Whether it’s a legacy system, a bolted-on afterthought, or a homegrown tool that just can’t keep up with your growth, weak mail tools will slow down your operation, inflicting unnecessary costs and opening the door for human errors. If your mail tool has you manually queuing campaigns, struggling to customize letters, or losing sight of your mail once it’s sent, it may be time to upgrade.

Built into our modern lending and credit platform is LoanPro’s Smart Mail House. Our native mailing tool offers several advantages that can help direct mail stay efficient, personalized, and scalable.

Launch and customize mail with unmatched speed

On a legacy platform or homegrown tool, setting up campaigns might require custom programming to determine what gets sent to which borrowers and under what conditions. Smart Mail House helps keep campaigns simple and streamlined with pre-built templates and no-code customization.

And where laws like the FCBA, GLBA, and FCRA involve have required disclosures, keeping your mail aligned and organized is essential for your compliance strategy. LoanPro has out-of-the-box templates that adhere to safe-harbor guidelines, keeping your communication compliant when you send TILA disclosures or other required notices, as well as templates for common communication needs like onboarding packets or due date reminders. You can easily customize each template or create your own—no back-end coding required.

Personalize communications without sacrificing efficiency

Personalizing letters with borrower and account information can make sure each one is carefully read and contains the pertinent information borrowers need to keep up with their repayment schedule. According to one industry report, 87% of financial services companies noted that personalizing their mail improved response rates and customer trust. Smart Mail House offers deep personalization without compromising your operational efficiency.

Each letter template can be set up with placeholders for data from the borrower, account, or any attached collateral item, and can even be customized with if-then language. A letter can include information about coupons, offers, or hardship recovery programs when a borrower qualifies for them, but hide them when they’re not relevant.

When a manual campaign or automation triggers Smart Mail House to generate a letter, that account data is merged into the template in real-time. With automation driving communication triggers, letter generation, and mailing, your entire direct mail campaign can be managed without any manual action from agents.

Stay efficient with real-time analytics

Once a letter is sent, many systems leave you in the dark, unsure if letters actually made it to their destination or if a campaign had its intended effect.

LoanPro’s real-time database syncs Smart Mail House data shared from USPS with each letter, so you have a comprehensive audit trail showing when letters were sent and delivered. And with ad hoc reporting tools, you can easily generate analytics or even run A/B testing to see which communication methods work best for different audiences and circumstances.

Modernize your mail

If you’re looking to automate your direct mail campaigns, personalize letters to each borrower, or keep your processes scalable as you grow, reach out to us. We’d love to hear more about your communication strategies and show you firsthand how LoanPro’s Smart Mail House works.