News
 10 Tips to Maximize Postal Discounts
By Britt Brouse, associate editor, Inside Direct Mail
Organized by the Philadelphia Direct Marketing
Association, a panel of regional mailing and postal
experts met on May 1 to discuss maximizing postal
discounts in the face of the May 12 rate changes.
In attendance were representatives from leading
marketing firms and the USPS®, including
Carolyn Angelini, director of production and postal
at Bensalem, Pa.–based HCI Direct, a marketer of
women’s hosiery and beauty products. Angelini
offered these 10 best practices for maximizing
postal discounts:
1. Designate a point person at your company
to focus on address hygiene.
2. Take advantage of workshare benefits
through destination discounts. Implement
commingling, co-mailing and co-palletization,
independently or together, to save money on various
letter-sized mail.
3. Conduct a cost-of-return analysis to
determine if it’s truly worth getting returned mail
sent back to you.
4. Evaluate scenarios based on landed costs.
For example, use this calculation:
Postage + Freight + Packaging + Fulfillment = Total
Landed Cost
5. Get in tune with how your mail is
processed both at the lettershop and at the Post
Office™.
6. Re-engineer pieces to qualify for
lower-cost processing categories.
7. Leverage postal knowledge—tap into
resources at the USPS by getting to know your postal
account manager.
8. Build an internal team of experts who
attend trade shows and industry events to stay ahead
of trends.
9. Know the upcoming implementation dates for
MOVE update (Nov. 23, 2008), Flat Sequencing Systems
(March 29, 2009 tentative) and Intelligent Mail
Barcodes (May 2009).
10. Subscribe to USPS newsletters such as DMM
Advisory and BSN Newsletter to keep informed about
new proceedings and implementation dates.
---Source: Inside Direct Mail May 7, 2008 issue (www.targetmarketingmag.com). Britt Brouse is an associate editor for Inside Direct Mail.
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