This post will serve has a follow up to our recent video on how to cut postage costs on catalog type mailers.

We want to expand on a few points so our cost-saving suggestions are complete. Please watch the above video before continuing so our points below make sense.

In the video, we spoke about cost-effective solutions for cutting postage on booklet or catalog type mailers. We mentioned the postage cost savings could be as high as $0.25 per piece. This savings does not include the additional costs to produce the options we’ve noted in the video.

For example, on the slim-jim piece, you will incur the cost of the (2) wafer seals required to mail at letter automation rates which is usually around $10.00/m. Another factor in moving from the full-size mailer to the slim-jim is the decrease in the amount of creative real estate. You will generally need to add 4 to 8 pages to make up for this lost space. Despite these two additional costs, the savings are huge because of how much postage you’re cutting.

The other option we spoke about is printing a full-size mailer but refolding (or soft-folding) the piece to 8.5 x 5.5. There are two additional costs associated with this as well.

First is the cost to refold the piece which generally runs about $500 depending on the equipment of your printer. The second is the cost to apply (2) wafer seals to close the piece and qualify for letter automation rates. As was the case above, even with these two factors considered, the cost savings are huge.

On a side note, the post office is reevaluating the use of the slim-jim format to make it run better on their letter sorting equipment. As it stands right now, many of the slim-jim pieces do not run well on their equipment and, as a result, have to be either hand sorted or run on their flat sorting equipment.

Stay tuned for an update on this ruling.

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On March 29th, 2009 the new USPS addressing requirements for flats went into affect. Flats are defined as direct mail measuring 11.5″ (w) x 6.125″ (h) up to a maximum size of 15″ (w) x 12″ (h).

To make things simple, we’re going to recap the new requirements and then point you to a couple of PDFs that contain additional information. This recap comes straight from the PDFs linked to below.

3 New Requirements for Standard & First-Class Mail:

1./ Mailers must address each piece using a minimum of 8-point type. Each character must be at least 0.080 inch high.

2./ If the mailpiece bears a POSTNET or Intelligent Mail barcode with a delivery point routing code, mailers may use 6-point type in all capital letters. Each character must be at least 0.065 inch high.

3./ On all automation pieces, the characters in the address must not overlap, the address lines must not touch or overlap, and each address element may be separated by no more than five blank character spaces. (A blank character space can equal the width of the widest letter used in the type.)

1 Additional Requirement For Standard Mail Only:

1./ Mailers must place the delivery address in the “top half” of the mailpiece (at the time of this writing, every piece of USPS literature we have says this is NOT a requirement for First-Class flat mail).

For more detailed addressing information, click below on the class of flat direct mail you send out.

First-Class | Standard

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If you mail flats — which is defined as a mail piece measuring 6-1/8″ x 11-1/2″ or larger — than you already know that the USPS increased the postage on this format by 40%.

In light of this postage hike, there was an article not too long ago in DM News called Creative Ways of Optimizing Flats.

In the article, 4 experts shared their advice and it was an interesting read…so we’re going to re-publish some of the content here…and also share our thoughts.

One last thing to note — on January 28th we’ll be releasing another industry report — this report will focus on what formats marketers surveyed will be testing in 2008.

We’ll be posting a link to the report on this blog so if you’re interested in reading it, please subscribe to our RSS feed or enter your email address in our opt-in box up top to the right.

OK, back to the DM News article…here are the pointers the 4 experts shared:

Mike Dietz’s Takeaway

“Package planning is key to making your direct mail flats a success.” Mr. Dietz recommends not building a mail piece to the maximum or minimum requirements. He also recommends developing a live paper sample and then making sure it’s in compliance with USPS limitations.

Victor Benson’s Takeway

“Effective envelope creative motivates consumers to open your piece.” Mr. Benson recommends mailing No. 9 and No. 10 envelopes (that mail out at letter rate). He also suggests that “Free gift inside” is a very effective envelope message to use…for the gift part, he’s found that free mailing labels work well.

John Cayne’s Takeaway

“Alternative formats can help you qualify for lower postage rates.” Mr. Cayne recommends taking tangible results from creative and messaging tests and applying them to alternative formats that qualify for letter rate.

Jim Stewart’s Takeaway

“Value-added postcards can help mail get attention.” Mr. Stewart recommends testing over-sized postcards for consumer mailings.  You can mail a postcard up to 6″ x 11″ and still qualify for letter rate.  He also recommends testing geo-targeting if it’s relevant to your product or service.

Ballantine’s Advice

We see a lot of clients that previously mailed flats taking their artwork and shrinking it down to letter rate. For example, one of our clients that was mailing a 9″ x 12″ envelope is now mailing the same exact artwork, but shrunken down to a 6″ x 9″ package. The piece still looks great and saves them a ton in postage dollars.

Free Format Suggestions

If you want us to take a look at your flat and suggest alternative formats that would qualify for letter rate, please email Ryan Cote: ryan (at) ballantine.com.