Royal Mail is soon to launch a new direct mail product as part of a range of efforts to promote direct mail in the face of the postal company's declining profits.

Advertising Mail, a suite of mailing options for promotional mailshots of 4,000 or more, will launch on 9 May as Royal Mail embarks on a range of activities to cut costs and stave off falling volume numbers. More details of the packages should be released this month.

Royal Mail, which posted an operating loss in the first half of the 2010/2011 financial year, will charge an additional 2 per cent on the Advertising Mail products on traditional prices, but this price rise is set in comparison to the 10 per cent increase across the board for high-volume business packet and mail services.

While increasing charges in the long term, Royal Mail is currently in the midst of its second ‘DM sale’ in which it is offering a 20 per cent discount on new or additional mail volumes in a bid to encourage more organisations to test direct mail.

A spokesman for Royal Mail told Civil Society that the measures are designed to ensure direct mail remains a competitive avenue for marketing spend.

“This is part of an evolution,” he said.

That evolution may involve, in the future, a payment-by-results model of direct mail whereby charities, for instance, would only be charged based on how many donors or gifts a direct mail campaign recorded.

But this initiative is only being considered and any implementation will be some time off, the spokesman said. “We will keep looking at things into the future,” he said.

Charities wanting to enquire about the DM Sale should do so by 15 April.