New USPS Flat Automation Changes Flat Mail Panel Requirements

The USPS recently announced that it has acquired new equipment to enable the automation of flat-rate mail. As a result, the mail panel requirements for these pieces have changed. The biggest change is that the mail panel portion of your flat-rate mail must now fall in the top half of your piece. As defined by the post office, for pieces not enclosed in an envelope or polybag, the top half of the piece is either one of the shorter edges when the bound or final folded edge is vertical and on the right-hand side of the piece. The address may be parallel or perpendicular to the top edge, but never upside-down and of course the postage must also fall within this top half. As for placement of your delivery address and return address in relation to the postage, feel free to continue positioning these items as usual, with the postage to the right or upper right of your delivery address and the return address about 1 inch above and to the left of your delivery address. These changes are effective immediately.

Get creative with your mail panel in an automation-friendly way

Questions about mail panels are constantly buzzing around our office. What size should the panel be? Can it have a background color or pattern? Can the indicia be inside the mail panel or should it be outside of it? Is there any way to make the mail panel interfere less with the postcard design?

Throughout our years in direct mail design and production, we’ve narrowed down a few answers to these questions that will hopefully help you in your direct mail design.

How big does the mail panel need to be?
The mail panel must be a minimum of 4” wide by 2” high, and should be anchored at the right-hand side of your piece, usually towards the bottom. This room is needed in order to inkjet on the address and barcode in a font size that is readable by USPS postal equipment. By leaving this room, you ensure that your mail piece will qualify for the lowest automation rate, which could save you a lot of money. If you fail to provide enough room, your mail piece may need to be addressed using labels, which doesn’t exactly produce the most professional look, and you may be charged extra as the piece may not be able to be automated.

Can the postage be inside this 4” x 2” mail panel?
We recommend leaving the entire 4” x 2” mail panel clear for addressing, and therefore recommend moving the postage area or indicia just above the top right corner of the mail panel.

Does my mail panel have to be shaped like a rectangle?
The mail panel does not have to be rectangular in shape, but whatever shape you choose you absolutely MUST ensure that there is 4” x 2” clear of space to add the address.

Does the mail panel have to be white in color?
The mail panel does not have to be white and can be a very light tint of a color. If you choose to tint your mail panel, it should be no more than 8% screen. If the color gets darker than 8%, there is a risk that the color will get too dark and will not contrast with the address that is inkjet on. If the address does not contrast enough, it will not be able to be read by USPS equipment.

Can I put a pattern in my mail panel?
Much like the rule about color, you can use a pattern, but it must not interfere with the address or barcode area. This means it must follow the same rule of 8% tint and it should not be high in contrast or contain vertical lines that would interfere with reading the barcode.

How can I make the mail panel less interruptive to my design?
This is a popular question, and we believe that the most discreet way of formatting a mail panel is to stretch a 2” strip across the entire bottom of the piece. This method is a little more elegant and doesn’t interrupt the flow of content as much as a 4” x 2” rectangle, however you will lose a little more page real estate.

Are you mailing to the right people?

When planning a direct mail campaign, most people arduously deliberate about copy, format, design, and mail schedule. While each of these points are very important to the overall success of the mailing, the most critical aspect of the mailing—your mailing list—is often given much less attention. Many people blindly use an in-house customer list that hasn’t been examined in years or purchase a generic list without ever considering testing and evaluating its effectiveness. How profitable can your carefully crafted mail promotion be if its recipient isn’t a qualified prospect? You must carefully plan your mailing list—it is the make-or-break factor of your mailing.

In fact, in today’s penny-pinching economy, paying closer attention to your mailing list is a great way to start saving money on your mailing. Mailing to the wrong people, duplicate addresses or invalid addresses can all add up to a sizable waste of print, production and postage costs.

In order to maximize your mailing and minimize your mail costs you are going to need to put some man-power into your list, but where do you start?

The best place to start refining your mail list is by using your existing customer database to build a “client profile” of your ideal customer. Your client profile should outline things like age, income, gender, location, profession, purchase history, etc. The more information you have about who your current clients really are, the better equipped you are to start narrowing down what kinds of people are supporters and purchasers of your product. You will be able to use the client profile to edit your house mail list and aid in selection of rented or purchased lists to supplement your house list.

When your client profile is complete, you can use the criteria to evaluate and edit your existing house mail list. Do you have prior customers who don’t fit your profile and haven’t responded to your advances in a while? Do you have prospects who refuse to convert to customers? After analyzing the list, don’t be afraid to trim the fat and clear your list of prospects who don’t show a real likelihood of purchasing your product. These contacts are simply robbing you of your postage dollars and pushing your response rates down. Its a waste of time and money marketing to people who clearly don’t fit into your client profile and show no signs of purchasing.

Ideally, you want to be mailing to people, not companies. Your mail list should contain an actual contact name, not just a company name. An actual contact name greatly improves that your mail piece will get into the right hands and be acted on. If you are unable to obtain contact names, you could address the piece to a specific position, such as ‘Supply Manager’ or ‘Household Shopper.’ Of course this is much less specific, but it should help in getting your mail piece into the hands of the right person.

Once your mail list is refined, it is important to make sure it stays in good shape. Your list will quickly begin to lose value if it is not maintained. You should have the list de-duped (checked for duplicate entries) and check for address validity often.

It is in your best interest to add to and validate the information in your database as often as possible through the use of mailed, emailed or phone surveys. Cross-reference this new database information against your mail list criteria and add or subtract from your mail list accordingly. The more information you have in your database, the better idea you have of your clients, which leads to higher-quality improvements in your mailing list.

After all this revision, your list will most likely end up shorter than it began. It is better to mail to a smaller, high-quality list than a large list full of prospects who will never purchase. If you are uncomfortable with the brevity of your list, you can always supplement your list with a rented or purchased list. Thanks to your new client profile, you will have a solid outline of criteria that can help you select a supplemental list. If you choose to purchase additional names to add to your house list, it is a great idea to test a small sampling of the list before purchasing and mailing to the entire list.

Your mail list is a constantly changing, growing, evolving thing. Its a tremendous company asset and the greatest factor in whether how mail promotion will perform. Be sure to give your list the attention it deserves—its got a big job to do.

Did you know? MERLIN means in-house verification of your mail?

A component of our on-site USPS office is the MERLIN barcode verification system. “MERLIN” (Mailing Evaluation Readability Lookup Instrument) refers to the piece of equipment used by the USPS to automate the process of the physical verification of mail. It verifies the readability of barcodes and confirms that barcodes are prepared properly and that the correct postage is being used. United Printing & Mailing is one of only a few facilities in Arizona certified by the USPS for outside verification of mail using MERLIN. The USPS requests that all mailings of more than 10,000 pieces be verified using the MERLIN device. Additionally, spot-checks are performed on mailings less than 10,000 pieces. Having MERLIN on-site allows us to bypass the need for verification upon delivery to the US Post Office.

Design a smarter letter mailer

Sales letters are one of the most common forms of direct mail. One might be tempted to think that the design and layout of a sales letter is a pretty cut-and-dry project. However, before you set your typestyle to 12-point Times New Roman and call it a day, consider these proven tactics to get more out of your sales letter.

Use bold, italics and underlines
Draw attention to the most important, motivating phrases of your letter using bold, italics or underlines. Be careful to use these tactics properly and sparingly. Overusing them can create a reverse effect, causing the page to look cluttered with nothing standing out.

Use indentations
Indenting paragraphs or lists of information help to create texture within your layout and set certain information off from the rest of your letter.

Use bullets to highlight lists
Breaking up your text with a bulleted list is a great way to grab your readers’ attention. Pair this technique with an indentation to draw even more attention to the list.

Include a P.S. note
Studies show that about 80% of people actually read the P.S. note first. To make the most of this behavior, its in your best interest to make sure the P.S. reads quickly and is set in an interesting and noticeable manner.

Handwritten notes
Adding a handwritten call-out or note in the margin of your letter creates an authentic, personal feel to your letter. For an added response, try using the handwritten technique on your P.S. note

Don’t forget the envelope
It’s easy to get so caught up in your letter that you forget all about the vehicle that carries it. Using a mysterious and motivating tagline is a great way to add some drama to your outer envelope. Don’t forget that a well-chosen image can sometimes increase the motivation factor of your envelope as well.

Nonprofit Tip: Don't toot your own horn

After reading that headline, you may be asking yourself what we are talking about? How else will anyone understand the great things your organization is accomplishing if you don’t tell them? Before you take these thoughts much further, let us point out that we do believe that you need to explain to your donor base how their support is impacting your organization, but what would happen if this explaination didn’t come from you? Third-party opinions tend to carry much more weight than your own. This is exactly why you go to a friend when you need a recommendation on which roofer or handyman to hire. You don’t trust what the roofer or handyman has to say nearly as much as your unbiased, trusted friend who has personal experience with them. What if you appealed to your donors using someone else’s words? Next time you have an appeal letter or email to write, consider telling the story through a volunteer, or interview someone who was changed or affected by your organization—use a true proponent’s voice to appeal to your audience.

Why your customers want you to use direct mail

Making the sale, writing the press release, arriving on time for your two o’clock client meeting, getting your invoicing done or making just one more call before quitting time—these are the things that make up our day. Then, just as we’ve been able to leave the office, we are greeted with a whole new set of tasks: carting the kids to soccer, piano or martial arts class, getting dinner on the table, walking the dog and straightening the house. Our lives are constantly buzzing.

In our current age of hyper-active scheduling, there seems to be little chance for an advertising message to have enough time to sink in. Think again. Strangely enough, the time-tested method of direct mail seems to be appealing to readers more than ever. Here’s why direct mail works for today’s audience:

Direct mail is less-interruptive than other mediums
With many advertising mediums, you get bombarded with messages in such a way that they are tough to avoid. TV ads interrupt your favorite show every 10 minutes, radio ads are played every 2 or 3 songs and internet ads pop up or flash incessantly at the side of the web page you are viewing. This is not the case with direct mail. It gets delivered to your mailbox and from there, you choose when you want to read it.

Direct mail gives the reader control
USPS research studies show that most people do enjoy flipping through their mail. As mentioned in the previous point, the great thing about direct mail is that you get to choose when to peruse your mail. You don’t have to look at the mail right as you get home, although it is there for you if you would like to. Feel free to make—and eat—dinner and even do the dishes before taking any time to look through the mail. Whether you wait until later in the day or even later in the week to read your mail—it will be there when you are ready. You, the reader, are in control.

Direct mail can be held onto for the future
Although direct mail is usually created to be urgent and time-sensitive, a reader can choose to prolong the message and hold onto mail that they may have a future interest in. Case in point: how many times have you held onto a catalog only to place an order from it a few months down the line? Your prospects do this all the time. The key to advertising is to be present when your prospect needs your product or service. With direct mail your message can reach a little further, as your recipient can save the mail piece for later, or even pass it on to a friend. Try doing that with a radio ad.

The fact is direct mail is easily accepted by most prospects, which gives you the window to make your best pitch for your product or service. Although direct mail may be a more traditional form of advertising, it still holds an important place in the mind of the consumer.