I read that you guys do a lot of direct mailing of postcards, thank you notes etc.
What do you get charged for each one and do you bulk mail it yourselves from the post office?
Here in Australia we are charged 55 cents per letter/postcard and can only do it from the post office. There probably is a direct mailing comapny of some sort but as it would be delivered by the Australian Post anyway I don’t think there would be much price difference.
Dave
It can vary widely depending on what discounts you’re eligible for.
For our customer database mailings we pay 14.7 cents each. To get that rate they’re addressed with ZIP+4, barcoded, sorted by ZIP and dropped at the Delivery Destination Unit.
When we mail letters to non-customers, however, the rate is 24 cents each. Not because they’re any bigger, but because we don’t want them barcoded (to make it look more personal.) We also don’t use the ZIP+4 on those.
When we send enough pieces of mail at one time, we can use our bulk mail permit and save a ton of money. We send 2300 at a time to our zip code, and it runs about 12.7 cents each. Permit costs about $150 a year, and I save that in two mailings.
If we send out just a dozen, then we have to pay published rates with nmo discounts.
I mail 2000 menus per store per month. I send it out as a saturation letter, through the DDU, and it cost 12.7 cents per unit.
In the cities I have to buy and address list. Which I purchase from www.melisadata.org for $9.99 per 1000, and print Walk-Sequenced, but in the rural routes all I do is print the menus with a postmark permit number, and POSTAL CUSTOMER (where the address label goes) and I count out the number for the route, and they ship them.
The total cost to print and ship 2000 menus a months runs about .25 each, but its worth it the response is tremendously greater than postcards, or door hanging, or even advo, val pak, and money mailer put together.
WA DAVE, I got to believe that the austrailian post has a similiar discount rate for companies that arrange the mail in a certain pattern for them taking the work out of sorting it. I imagine if you talk to you Postmaster or whatever they call them over there that he would wlak you through the steps, or direct you towards a postal class.