POSTAGE COSTS are the single biggest item in any direct mail campaign. Every aspect of POSTAGE CHARGES need to be looked
at carefully to get the cheapest price consistant with what level of service you require.
SIZE
When planning your mailing you willl need
to see if all items can be A/5 size. If so then you have immediately cut the cost per item for 2nd class inland from 44p to
31p (these are mailing house prices and are not what you would pay for a 2nd Class stamp at a PO).
An Insert
or Brochure needs to be planned well ahead as whilst you can fold a letter you may not be able to fold a brochure. There is
a small cost for folding but negligible compared to the savings on the postage.
On 1000 2nd class letters you can
save £150 just by thinking of size.
FORWARD
PLANNING
If you have to use A/4 or any size bigger than A/5 then you would
do well to think of the quantity you need to send out.
Starting at just 1001 off you can reduce you postage bill
on a 1000 2nd Class letters by up to £100. However this method takes a few days longer and you would want to allow 5
days for delivery. Again forward planning is the key.
Sometimes you have no choice but to post out 1st Class
but in most cases thinking ahead would allow you to go for the cheaper option.
MAILSORT INLAND MAIL
For large
inland mailings ie over 4001 off you would do well to think MAILSORT. This is where we do the sortation of your letters instead
of Royal Mail. We sort using special sofware - by postcodes - your mail into anything up to 800 different locations.
We bag and label and these letters go straight to the local sorting office without being handled by Royal Mail.
Hence we get a discount which we pass on to you minus a handling charge.
The main points about MAILSORT is that
all the addresses must be Inland, 95% must have postcodes and the minimum quantity is 4001. The costings are very much weight
related but the step bands are very small so an item weighting 110gms might cost you 27p (Large Letter C/4) - an item
weighing 200gms might cost you 35p and an item weighing 249 gms will cost you 58p. If sent by normal post then all
three items would cost you the same - 59p each. Again a big saving.
The costings for MAILSORT are myriad and
complex so suffice to say that we can save you money but we would need to look at each individual order to determine how much.
Then
there is PACKETPOST & PACKETSORT - RECORDED DELIVERY - SPECIAL DELIVERY and SAME DAY
You have MAILSORT
1, 2 and 3 - MAILSORT LITE - plus more specialised versions of MAILSORT including WALKSORT, PRESSTREAM and CLEANMAIL
For
most people, many of these services will never be of use or be used but they are available and they all are capable of saving
clients money.