Neopost’s Exclusive President’s Guarantee
Trade in that Phase IV Machine today and receive a guarantee like no other
As you may know the impending decertification deadline is fast approaching and will affect your business. Your current meter may be identified on the USPS list for Phase IV meter decertification. This means after December 31st you can no longer download any postage to that meter.
As your mailing machine manufacturer and solutions partner, we are here to help you navigate through these USPS decertification regulations and avoid unnecessary business disruption.
If you order a mailing machine to replace your decertified Phase IV meter by October 24th, we will guarantee the delivery of your new mailing machine by December 31st.
Please contact your local sales location or representative today to learn more about this special offer.
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In Strategic Transformation of Post Office, Businesses Can Be Winners Too
In my last education piece regarding Postal Transformation, the focus was on the significant changes happening within the USPS as they related to the USPS Strategic Transformation Plan. The concept was, businesses must take action to align their mail production with the direction of postal service initiatives. By doing this, businesses can identify opportunities to make positive contributions to their bottom line. Additionally, the article highlighted the notion that mail is a vehicle for business communication, and therefore companies must begin to view mail in a more strategic way to maximize the effectiveness of this communication vehicle.
The USPS continues to announce and implement new requirements for business mailers, the latest being the Move Update. As of November 23, 2008, requirements for Move Update will be changed as part of the USPS’ initiative to reduce UAA (undeliverable as addressed) mail.
Two specific key components are:
- The USPS is increasing the minimum frequency of processing from 185 days to 95 days prior to the date of mailing.
- The USPS is expanding Move Update from First-Class Mail® to automation and presorted mailings to include all Standard Mail®. And with a little planning, all businesses, whether they are affected by the new rules or not, can use these changes as a springboard to positive change. For more information please visit http://ribbs.usps.gov/files/Move_Update/MUP_overview.html
First, a little history. Move Update is part of the post office’s initiative to reduce the amount of undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) mail by providing ways for companies to reduce the number of mail pieces requiring forwarding or return. In effect for first-class mail for quite some time, the rationale behind the initiative is not hard to comprehend: UAA is a major expense for the USPS and costs close to $1.9 billion dollars each year. To take this one step further, the USPS estimates that 45 million Americans and 2.3 million businesses change addresses every year. This means, on average, your database deteriorates 1% per month without “addressing” these facts. So, if you haven’t updated your list for a year you are sending 10-15% of your mail potentially undeliverable.
There are a number of business mailers that will not fall under the Move Update requirement. If you’re one of those unaffected businesses, you should just shrug your shoulders and go back to what you were doing, right?
Wrong. If you send out a piece of mail with a poor quality address, there are two things that can happen. Either the delivery of the piece will be delayed, or the piece will not get there at all. You could be delaying cash flow or missing out on an opportunity to get a new customer. What could be worse?
A mid- to small-sized mailer may look at new postal regulations such as Move Update and think, “This doesn’t affect me. I’m not a bulk-mailer, and I don’t think I even qualify for these huge discounts.” As a result, they ignore these changes that the post office is instituting. The reason that the post office is doing this is to improve the deliverability of mail. Whether a company is sending one invoice or a million invoices a month, why wouldn’t you want it delivered? This is not a big mailer conversation; it is an every mailer conversation. By sending out undeliverable mail, you are losing money everyday.
What is the purpose of mail? You send out a piece of mail because you want to communicate a message to a customer, prospect, vendor or organization. You want it to be delivered to your recipient at the most appropriate time in the most appropriate fashion, and make it as easy as possible for them to pay their bill, respond to an offer, or become a customer. If you don’t think about how you’re going to put an accurate, clean, up-to-date address on the mail piece, you may be jeopardizing the chances it will reach its destination.
Think of these consequences in terms of a direct mail campaign. If you send out 10,000 mail pieces, as many as 1,500 mail pieces may be undeliverable due to bad addresses. The response rate to your direct mail campaigns is typically 3%, a relatively conservative number. That means, of the 1,500 pieces that don’t get delivered, you’ve lost 45 prospects who normally would have responded to your offer.
click here for the full article
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