Controlling Postage Costs: How Postalytics Helps You Send More for Less

Postage, or the cost of sending mail, can be one of the most significant costs in direct mail campaigns. Even if you have a well-designed and perfectly targeted mail piece, it won’t be cost-effective if you don’t manage postage properly.

Postalytics has made sending direct mail easier by using technology to automate, connect, and track campaigns. But even with these tools, controlling postage and shipping costs is still important to get the most value for your money.

To reduce postage costs, you can use some simple strategies: planning your mailings before postage rates go up, using USPS postage promotions, and seeking postal discounts for cheaper rates. Taking advantage of discounted shipping supplies and lower shipping costs with major carriers can also significantly reduce wasted postage.

These are just some tactics we will share in this guide to help you save money while reaching more people with your marketing. 

Let’s dive in. 

Understanding Postage Costs

First, we need to understand the ins and outs of the costs involved in posting direct mail.

What are postage costs?

Postal costs refer to the expenses incurred when sending mail through postal services.

These costs can vary widely based on several factors, including the weight, size, and destination of the mailpiece, as well as the level of service chosen. For businesses, understanding and managing these costs is crucial to maintaining a healthy bottom line.

Factors affecting the cost of postage

Several factors can influence postage costs, making it essential to consider each one carefully:

• Weight and size of the mailpiece: Heavier and larger items typically cost more to ship.
• Destination and shipping zone: Shipping costs can vary depending on how far the mailpiece needs to travel.
• Level of service chosen: Options like first-class, priority, and express services come with different price points.
• Type of mailpiece: Letters, packages, and flats each have their own pricing structures.
• Use of special services: Additional services such as tracking, insurance, and signature confirmation can increase costs.
• Discounts and promotions: Taking advantage of postal discounts and promotions can significantly reduce shipping fees.

What is postal optimization?

Postal optimization is the process of streamlining the efficiency of mail to reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction. This involves strategies like optimizing mailpiece design, leveraging discounted shipping rates, and implementing efficient mailing processes.

Postalytics helps businesses take postal optimization even further by automating direct mail, tracking deliveries, and connecting with CRM systems to make mailing easier and more affordable. Learn these benefits as you read more.

Mailing List Maintenance

If you’re running a small business and decide to send out 1,000 postcards to potential customers, but 200 of those addresses are outdated, those postcards will never get delivered. That’s a lot of wasted shipping costs, time, effort, and money.

This is why updating and managing your mailing list is a simple but crucial way to reduce costs. If you send mail to old or incorrect addresses, you’re wasting money on postage and delivery costs for people who won’t even receive your mail.

Postalytics can help with this problem by allowing you to easily import your mailing list and automatically check it against the USPS database. This ensures that you’re only sending mail to the correct addresses, which helps control costs and reduce waste. An updated mailing list can also lower transportation and shipping costs by ensuring efficient delivery routes.

The result? A more efficient campaign with fewer wasted mail pieces, lower shipping fees, and higher conversion rates – all while keeping your postage spend in check.

Timing Mailings Before Rate Increases to Reduce Costs

Postal rates go up from time to time, and if you don’t plan for it, it can really affect how much you spend on sending mail – and your profit margins on a direct mail campaign.

To understand better, imagine a company preparing a large direct mail campaign, only to realize that a rate increase is just days away. Without careful planning, their shipping costs suddenly rise, eating into the marketing budget.

That’s why timing is so important. Businesses can lock in lower rates and avoid those sudden cost increases by scheduling mailings before USPS rate hikes. How?

• Stay informed about USPS rate changes
• Plan bulk mailings ahead of time to avoid increases
• Coordinate with your marketing calendar to align with mailing deadlines

For companies that rely on frequent direct mail campaigns, this strategy translates into significant savings over time, allowing them to stretch their marketing dollars further while still reaching their audience effectively.

Pre-Paying for Postalytics Postage Credits

Another smart way to save on postage is by pre-paying for postage credits. 

With Postalytics, companies can buy these credits in bulk, which locks in the current rates and helps avoid future price increases. This is especially helpful for businesses that send direct mail regularly because it makes it easier to plan their budget and avoid surprises when postage rates go up.

Pre-paying also helps companies manage their money better. If they have the money to pay upfront, they can spread out their marketing expenses over time. Locking in a rate now means you don’t have to worry about the cost of postage going up and affecting your campaign budgets later. It simplifies your budget planning, and you can take advantage of bulk purchasing discounts.

Choosing the Right Mailing Class for Cost Savings

Choosing the right mailing class is an important decision that can have a big impact on how much you spend on postage. 

The USPS offers different mailing classes, and each one has its own price and delivery speed:

First Class Mail

First-Class Mail is the most expensive option offered by the USPS, but with the higher price comes their highest level of service. First-class letter postage costs $.58 retail, and a small postcard costs $.40. Direct mail service providers can often reduce postage costs through volume discounts. The first-class level of service provides:

• Fast delivery – usually within 3-5 business days after receiving the mailers from the printer
• Priority processing – during peak mailing periods, first-class mail is processed first
• Detailed Intelligent Mail Barcode data – marketers can track the mail all the way from the local post office to delivery on doorstep

Marketing Mail (also known as Standard Mail)

Marketing Mail is used by many direct mailers to lower direct mail advertising costs. This is a class of mail open only to direct mail service providers like commercial printers. The pricing varies based on the format, starting at about $.31 per piece, and while it’s cheaper, the service is slower. It is ideal for large-scale, non-urgent campaigns.

The standard class direct mail level of service provides:

• Slower delivery – between 10-15 business days
• Lower priority processing – during peak seasons or regional slowdowns due to equipment issues, standard class mail is processed after other types of mail
• Limited Intelligent Mail Barcode data

Nonprofit Mail

For qualifying organizations, nonprofit mail is a cost-effective option that provides substantial postage savings. The USPS offers USPS Marketing Mail, which comes with preferential pricing for eligible organizations. 

Non-profit shipments sent via USPS Marketing Mail can be up to 60% less than the price of First Class Mail.
For example, a non-profit organization could reduce its postage costs from $0.291 per piece to as low as $0.173, a savings of $11,800 for a direct mail campaign of 100,000 pieces.

Postalytics can help you choose the best mailing option based on your budget and how quickly you need your mail to arrive.

For example, if you’re running a promotion that needs to reach people quickly, First-Class Mail might be your best choice because it’s faster. But if you’re sending out something like a newsletter that isn’t urgent, Marketing Mail can save you a lot of money while still reaching a large number of people.

This way, you can balance cost and timing based on what works best for your campaign.

We also have a handy Direct Mail Cost Calculator to help you figure out the shipping cost of your campaign.

Leveraging USPS Postage Promotions for Postage Discounts

Taking advantage of United States Postal Service (USPS) promotions can lead to significant savings. These promotions, such as the Earned Value Reply Mail Promotion and the Personalized Color Promotion Discount, incentivize mailers to use certain features and technologies for their mailpieces to qualify for these discounts.

These deals usually give companies discounts on postage when they use new and creative features, like QR codes or augmented reality. Using these promotions can help companies reduce shipping costs and make their mail more interesting for people to interact with.

Some examples of USPS Promotional Programs include;

• Informed Delivery Campaigns: Allows digital previews of mail, offering discounts for participation.
• Emerging and Advanced Technology Promotion: Discounts for integrating technologies like AR or QR codes.
• Tactile, Sensory, and Interactive Mailpieces: Discounts for creative, engaging mailpieces that stand out.

Postalytics makes it easy to add these features, like QR codes that lead to personalized websites (pURLs), helping companies qualify for the USPS discounts and improve how well their mail campaigns work. 

Staying informed about these promotions and using them in your campaigns can help you save money and get more attention from your audience.

Postalytics Is Your Partner for Direct Mail

Keeping the cost of postage under control is important for getting the best return on investment (ROI) from your direct mail campaigns.

Postalytics gives you the tools and automation you need to make managing your mailing costs easy. It helps businesses reduce costs, cut down on waste and find cost-effective shipping methods for their mail and packages.

You can make sure your direct mail campaigns are both effective and affordable by managing shipping and mailing costs carefully. 

Get your free account today and start saving money on your direct mail campaigns.