Nobody likes to fail. But when it comes to direct-mail efforts, lessons that arise from stunning failures often can lead to stunning success

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

Needless to say, we withdrew the mailing and researched why we were in violation. Although we knew we could file an appeal with the USPS if we thought the ruling was erroneous, that would delay the mailing even further while we waited for a response to our appeal. Or we could go forward with the mailing, pay more than $1 million in postage and get a refund if the USPS ruling was later found to be incorrect. Neither of those options were acceptable, and so we focused on getting back on track with the mail date without having to reprint the envelopes, outsert the contents from the “bad” package and then re-insert — at a cost of more than $30,000.