• by Erik Sass , March 23, 2007

To cut down on mailing costs and paper consumption, a direct marketer based in Portland, Oregon has gone electronic. It's sending printable coupons to consumers on CDs. In the past 18 months, SaverCD, LLC has distributed the CDs in the Northwest as part of its "beta" test. Yesterday, it announced plans to begin national distribution in early 2008, with a first national mailing scheduled to include 15 million CDs.

Thus far, the service has attracted more than 700 national and local advertisers, including AllRecipes.com, Bally Total Fitness, Chuck E. Cheese's, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, GoodYear, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Oregon Symphony, Orkin, Papa John's Pizza and Pizza Hut.

Since its inception in October 2005, the company has mailed about 3 million "$averCDs" to 400,000 households. There is a 90-day shelf life of each quarterly saver. The direct mailing of CDs allows consumers the option of choosing coupons of interest, which they print out themselves. This reduces household and municipal trash costs and the burden of recycling unwanted mailings.

The direct mail CD service has some "halo" effects in online behavior, driving traffic to advertiser Web sites. According to the company, 8% of households that receive the CD went online to conduct research related to advertised products, extending to product purchases.

"We are pleased by the beta results that we have seen these past six quarters and are now positioning the company for national launch and distribution," said William E. Simpson II, founder and president of SaverCD.

The company positions the clean, distraction-free interface as an alternative to annoying online ads, like pop-ups and Spam, that frustrate consumers looking for deals. At the same time, SaverCD capitalizes on the rejection of traditional media ad models, noting the growing popularity of ad-skipping technologies like TiVo.