Done right, direct mail marketing can be a very cost effective way to reach your prospects and customers. The return on your investment typically exceeds most other forms of advertising. However, inefficient list targeting and poor mail piece design can cost you a lot of money. The following information can help you maximize your return on investment in your direct mail.
General Postal Costs:
Here are the basic direct mail marketing first class and presorted first class rates. Single piece rates are now $0.50 for letters and $1.00 for flats. In the presorted first class rates we see letters at $0.424 and flats at $0.705, so even at the presorted rate range, flats are significantly more than letters. Moving onto standard and nonprofit rates, we do see a decrease in the difference between letters and flats for both standard at $0.311 more per piece and nonprofit with $0.26 more per piece. So if you have to mail at flat rate, make sure to take advantage of standard postage rates.
General Postal requirements:
Now we have the general postal requirements for direct mail marketing. There are 4 factors that the post office considers to calculate postage. They are Weight, Thickness, Size and Aspect Ratio. Presorted letter size mail can weigh up to 3.5 ounces for the same postage rate. Flats increase postage for each ounce in weight. Each mail category has a specific minimum and maximum size. Letters must be between 3.5 inches to 11.5 inches, be careful because folded self-mailers and booklets have different requirements they go from 3.5 inches to 10.5 inches. Flats are between 5 inches to 15 inches. Now for the thickness requirements, letters are between .009 to .25, flats are .25 to .75 . Finally aspect ratio, which is the length divided by the height needs to be between 1.3 and 2.5 for letter sized mail. There is no such requirement for flats. You do not need to know all of these regulations we can help you. Call us (619) 297-2281 during your design phase to make sure you get the best postage rates available.
Direct Mail Letters Versus Flats:
Switching from direct mail marketing flat size mail to letter size mail can significantly reduce your direct mail marketing postage costs, however there are some things to consider. Flats can be a ½ inch thicker than letters. You can use plastic envelopes or poly wrap on flats but not letters. Another perk is the ability to use square shaped mailers for flats, letters would not allow that. You also do not need to use tabs for flats like you do for letters. Lastly the max size is 12 inches x 15 inches which gives you a ton of room for your message. One more thing noted by the DMA 2017 Response Rate report is that flat size mail gets a better response rate. With a price tag for standard mail at $0.311 more per piece than a letter though, is it worth it? Test to find out what will work best for you.
As you can see in an example of a 9 x 12 envelope versus a 6 x 9 if you mail 1000 pieces you can save $311! Depending on what you are selling, this could be more than your product or service and if you mail 10,000 you save $3110!! One more way the post office helps is that it allows you to send up to 3.5 ounces presorted letter rate at the same postage cost. You can add more pages without adding postage.
Want to know more or would like us to help you design your mail piece to get the best postage rates? Contact us today! We are glad to help!