With email allowing people to communicate near-instantly, and social media and collaboration tools facilitating instant (often face-to-face) contact, physical mail might be on its last legs. This is evidenced by the fact that the USPS (United States Postal Service) is processing roughly half of the mail than only a decade ago. However, physical mail can still benefit your small business. And if you want the most convenient method of sending mail in bulk, you’ll also need a postage meter to accompany the process. Here’s what you need to know.
The Benefits of Physical Mail
While email updates are typically the way to go when it comes to regular communications with your current clients, physical mail can allow you to grow in a few different ways.
Most Mail Is Marketing Mail
As mentioned, the ability to message someone with all the information they need has largely made mail obsolete apart from package deliveries. That has left mail in a unique place to carve out a niche as a marketing tool. This is bolstered by the fact that around 60% of mail people receive is used for advertising and marketing.
This means that companies are actively still competing with each not only in the digital sphere but also in a physical one. If you don’t use mail to deliver new offers to potential clients, you might be ignoring a sizeable audience share.
People Like Mail
While email is convenient, it can be a bit too impersonal. Your clients are likely subscribed to dozens of mailing lists and are staring at dozens of emails from LinkedIn that someone has invited them to connect.
Getting a physical envelope in a mailbox is more tangible. It’s an item that can be held and felt, with their name on it. It invites them to open it and check it out. And the stats support this feeling, with roughly 40% of Americans actually looking forward to checking their mail.
When combined with the previous point, it’s obvious to see how people can more easily find what your company is offering if you send physical mail to them. This makes direct mail marketing a potential growth tool you can leverage in your client acquisition strategy.
Physical Mail Is Engaging
So we know people like mail and mostly get marketing mail. But do they actually respond to it?
In fact, they do. According to the Data, Marketing & Analytics arm of the ANA (Association of National Advertisers), more than 40% of people read through the mail they receive. Furthermore, the response rate for this type of mail is around 9%. This is similar to the response rate for email marketing, but only for highly specialized campaigns. The general, cold email engagement rate stands at a lowly 0.9%.
That means that people have greater odds of opening a marketing letter than they do with an email. What’s also working in physical mail’s favor is the fact that they have a physical item to refer to rather than an email they have to track.
According to the Harvard Business Review, companies that sent both physical mail and emails to customers had a 48% sales rate, compared to only 26% from an email-only campaign.
If you put all this together, physical mail can be a great way to improve your marketing efforts. Even if it might take a bit more investment to print physical leaflets and catalogs compared to maintaining online-only versions, the added potential for finding new customers and sales can be worth it.
Why Use a Postage Meter for Mail
A postage meter is a dedicated machine that prints postage information (indicia) or a label on a letter or package. With a postage meter, you don’t have to wait in line at the post office to send your mail; you can just drop it off at the nearest post office or have a dedicated postal service collect it for sending.
Saves Time and Money
One of the most obvious benefits of a postage meter is saving time. Since you don’t need to have an employee stand in line at the post office to send mail – and worse, dictate postage information to the clerk – you can save time and improve overall office productivity.
Additionally, a postage meter saves you money directly. If you use stamps to send mail, you typically have to purchase them in bulk and have fixed mailing costs that are typically higher than using postage for an item of the same weight. To incentivize the use of postage meters, the USPS also typically provides around a 10% discount on postage compared to sending mail through a post office.
Allows You to Customize Labels
The mailing label is the first thing your recipients will see, so why not make it a bit special?
A more advanced postage meter can print logos, business slogans, or even entire messages onto the envelope, giving you more marketing opportunities even if people end up not opening the mail. Plus, it makes your envelope stand out from the dreaded bills.
Convenience
Postage meters are surprisingly easy to use. The meter’s software typically provides detailed instructions on placing the envelope, and the software pretty much does everything else automatically, depositing the stamped envelope in its outbox. Furthermore, since the meter is typically connected to multiple databases, you can find all the information you need on how much the postage will cost relatively quickly.
In most cases, the meter will automatically deduct funds from your company’s account (or an account dedicated to posting) or a prepaid account. In more advanced models, you can put multiple accounts or sender codes to track postage spending by department or purpose.
Scalability
You might think that getting a postage meter is beyond your budget. After all, it’s an entire machine that needs to be paid for and maintained. Luckily, you can find relatively small postage meters for lease that cost between $50 and $200 per month. Granted, they don’t have many advanced features and typically can’t handle postage in bulk, but they work great for sending a few dozen mails per week.
Where to Find a Postage Meter?
Postage meters are federally regulated by the USPS, and they can’t be sold directly. The only way to obtain a postage meter is to lease (rent) one from a dedicated postage meter vendor. It ensures that you’re getting a valid model that is automatically updated with new features and postage costs as issued by the USPS.
If you want to simplify your mailing efforts and operate from Cary, Raleigh, and the Triangle, then Anza Mail might be the perfect fit to help you grow your company. Anza Mail provides all mail-related solutions, including postage meters, mailing systems, specialty printers, and software to integrate them with your platform. Contact Anza Mail and start reaping the growing benefits of physical mail marketing.
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