IS BULK MAILING STILL WORTH IT?
Posted on March 5, 2024
Written by Ken LaLone
Tags: Mailing, Marketing
74% of marketers believe direct mail delivers the best ROI (return on investment), response rate, and conversion rate when compared to other channels, including email.
IS IT WORTH THE EFFORT?
We won’t bore you with the reports, but these articles by Business Wire and the American Marketing Association are great resources that show how direct mail marketing is more than twice as effective as email marketing.
BUT CAN I SAVE MONEY AND BE MORE EFFECTIVE?
Yep! At Coughlin, our last fifteen customer bulk mailings saved over $6,500 in postage than if they were done with first-class postage.
IS BULK MAILING OVERWHELMING?
It can be, but it doesn’t have to be! The postal service continues to change the requirements which can make it harder for you to do. Their newest requirement is that all paperwork for bulk mail must be submitted electronically via the USPS online system. Coughlin has been doing it for years and they can do everything from designing your piece to dropping the whole thing off at the post office. We design it, print it, fold it, stuff it, tab it, seal it, stamp it, and mail it. We have you covered!
Get in touch with us if you have any mailing needs or would like to discuss the best way to reach out to your target audience with bulk mailing items.
Want more in-depth details about how we do it all? Keep reading!
We can design your piece, or we can use your already designed piece. We will print it, fold it, tab it, etc using Postal Standards. We can even insert it into your envelopes (which we can also print 😊). We will seal it, address it, and print or apply the postage. Much of this process is done mechanically, ensuring accuracy and speed.
Once your piece is ready to move on to the next step in the mailing process, we offer the use of our mailing permit to our customers so that they have access to bulk mailing rates without the need to purchase their own permit through the post office.
Addresses are printed onto your mailing pieces with intelligent mail barcodes. This allows us to access steeper discounts using automated postage rates. Mailing pieces are sorted into trays in preparation for entry into the USPS mail stream. *
* Certain mail pieces have special requirements for mailing. You can read more about these special requirements here.
We continue to be well informed of the newest requirements from the USPS. The newest requirement is that all bulk mailing documentation must be submitted to the USPS electronically. The grace period to meet this requirement has been extended to March 31, 2024. Coughlin has been preparing for the electronic document submission process and has recently achieved a 100% electronic submission rate for our customer’s postal paperwork. We have and will continue to ensure that our customer’s postal paperwork is completed and submitted in compliance with USPS standards to ensure that our customers receive the best possible postal rates.
Speaking of speed & accuracy, you will provide us with your mailing list(s). We can take multiple mailing lists, combine them into a single file, and edit them so that addresses match postal mailing standards. That list is then checked against deliverable addresses in the USPS database and against the National Change of Address (NCOA) database. The NCOA ensures that the mailing piece reaches intended recipients who have filed a change of address form with the USPS in the last six months. Upon request, we can provide you with the correctly formatted list and a report noting which addresses were changed and the way they were changed.
As was previously mentioned, our last fifteen bulk mailing customers saved by using bulk rates instead of first-class rates. Obviously, there are fees associated with our services. And the minimum quantity you need to mail for bulk rate is 200 pieces. But even after calculating the mailing-related fees, there was still a very significant overall savings for our clients.