Are you saving as much as you could
on First-Class Mail?

When you use a postage meter or access your postage online, you are automatically saving 5¢ on every First-Class letter you send. But you may not realize there are some easy ways to increase your savings by following a few simple steps.

Here are three ways your business can reduce your postage spend today.

Flat vs. Fold

You can save 50% on postage by converting flats to letter-sized mail. How do you do this?
Simply fold your documents in half and use a 6” x 9.5” envelope.This converts your flat mail to letter-size mail (up to and including 3.5 ounces), qualifying your mail for First-Class Mail Letter rates, saving you up to 50% on every piece.

Get the address right

Sending to the wrong address can cost up to $25 per piece for mail that is returned and then needs to be corrected and re-sent. In today’s world of every location being mapped, it should be simple to avoid this costly mistake.

But according to the USPS®, about 1.4 billion pieces of First-Class and standard mail were marked “return to sender” in 2015. The USPS also reports that up to 18 percent of the U.S. population moves each year.

Finding the right partner or software solution to help cleanse your address data and manage your returned mail can help you fix this problem. Plus, it will save you time, money, and your reputation with customers.

Don’t go it alone

Large-volume mailers have several options available that provide additional opportunities to save on postage.
The USPS offers workshare programs where you perform some of the tasks that the USPS would normally perform, like pre-sorting mail. If you’re mailing hundreds of similar-size First-Class mail pieces, you should explore automation “presort” discounts.

If you prepare the mailings yourself, then you can acquire software to automate your mailings. This requires that you send 500 pieces of First-Class Mail in a single mailing. In addition to qualifying your mail for discounts, this software can also cleanse your addresses, update moves, and provide the USPS Intelligent Mail Barcode on your mail pieces that also allows you to track your mail delivery.

There are also services that can presort your mail for you without any special software required. Depending on how often you are mailing, you may only need a couple of hundred pieces at a time to qualify for a service that will pick up your mail and allow you to post it at a reduced rate.