Costs for presorted first class letters increased by an average of .5%, and presorted standard class letters increased by an average of 1.8%.

Mailtech has been preparing for this increase and is, as always, constantly working to ensure its customers receive the best rate and deliverability possible.

To find out more information on the rate increase please read the USPS press release.

In a struggling economy, older homeowners are turning to reverse mortgages as a way to pull money out of their homes, with the loan not coming due until the borrower dies. But the loans can come with hefty charges, including origination fees, closing costs and compounding interest on loan principal.

“Reverse mortgages are a very risky deal for borrowers who don’t understand the complicated terms of the loan and how quickly fees and interest charges can add up,” said Norma Garcia, senior staff attorney for Consumers Union.

Read More of this Article by Jim Puzzanghera in the Los Angeles Times…

Patrick R. Donahoe began his first congressional hearing as postmaster general-designate on a sunny note.

“Despite recent headlines, the Postal Service remains a very strong and motivated organization,” he told a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs subcommittee on Thursday.

Motivated for sure.

But moments after Donahoe’s brief bit of optimism, he described an organization that is financially very weak.

“Our total loss for [fiscal 2010] year was $8.5 billion,” said Donahoe, who officially becomes postmaster general Saturday.

Read More of this Article by Joe Davidson in the The Washington Post…

Direct mail is one of the most important pieces of your marketing plan. Developing and executing the campaign can many times be a thankless job. Today’s mailing regulations can get complicated–postage rates are changing and the flood of mail makes it harder to stand out. The right message is very important and must get to the target prospect in the right way on a frequent basis. Capturing your reader has to happen fast and your reader must be motivated to take action.

Here are 99 direct mail marketing tips to ensure that you get the right message to the right target–in the right way.

• Consult with a direct-mail specialist
• Give a free gift to increase response
• Highlight the free-gift offer prominently
• Use short copy to tease the reader to read further or respond
• Minimize the use of buzz words
• Make your offer easy to respond to
• Prove any claims with details to add credibility
• Ask for the order right away
• Use graphics and color to support the message and text
• Offer a free trial to eliminate risk
• Hire a professional copywriter for your content
• Hire a professional graphic designer
• Make your offer easy to understand at a glance
• Promise many benefits
• Give many reasons to buy
• Use all the formatting available with taste
• Have your direct mail reviewed by an objective third party
• Use colored paper to make impact and save on printing costs

Read more of this article by Al Lautenslager on Entrepreneur Magazine’s Website…

For starters, buying prospect lists and testing packages is expensive. Postage alone usually costs more than an entire e-mail campaign. By the time you’ve blown through the creative work and the paper, printing and postage, direct mail costs at least 15 times more than e-mail marketing.

It also takes awhile to get results. On average, direct-mail campaigns can take four to six weeks to complete, compared to e-mail’s seven to 10 business days.

Choosing Mail

So why bother? There are compelling reasons to rely on direct mail. To name a few reasons for using direct mail, you might want to:

• Drive foot traffic into a retail shop
• Generate traffic for a Web site
• Target customers who distrust the Web or aren’t online
• Showcase products and services in ways e-mail cannot, such as via a catalog
• Improve customer service
• Send content or news, such as an informational brochure
• Shift consumer perception of your brand

And that’s just a start.

The latest electronic databases and slice-and-dice psychographics have transformed old-fashioned, direct-mail methods. With appropriate lists and laser-targeted customers, direct mail is very effective. Its reach and credibility yields results that differ from other marketing efforts.

Rocket Launch

So let’s assume you’ve kicked tires, done the math and delved into database options and sales leads.

Once you’ve determined that direct mail is your most effective channel, here are five smart tips that will help drive direct-mail responses and boost your sales and leads.

1. Be true to your RFM. This stands for “recent purchase,” “frequency” and “monetary profile.” Before developing any campaign, you should know when each customer on the mailing list last purchased a product from you or a competitor; how often that customer buys your product or similar offerings; and what amount she tends to spend for the product or services.”Small businesses need to look inward before they look outward,” says W. Michael King, creative director at Grizzard Performance Group, an Atlanta direct-marketing agency. “Who are their best customers? Where do they live? What are their preferences? What has been their brand experience as it pertains to their business? They need to answer these and other questions before they lay out any acquisition strategy.”Experts say consumers need to receive at least three pieces a month to notice marketing. The price tag is the same if you mail 5,000 pieces to 5,000 customers or send five pieces over five weeks to 1,000 targeted customers.

Read more from this article by Joanna L. Krotz on Microsoft.com…

Spending about $20,000 on the personally signed letters, which offered customers a discount on early orders, seemed indulgent for Per Annum Inc., which sells city diaries, albums, and planners in the struggling corporate gift market. But after swapping snail mail for email last year, Ms. Settle saw a 25% drop in early orders compared with the same period the previous year.

“We realized we had made a huge mistake,” says Ms. Settle, president of the New York firm.

The affordability of e-marketing, along with the explosion of social media and the desire to trim costs in the recession, has prompted many small companies like Per Annum to slash traditional direct-mail budgets. U.S. consumers received about 5.2 billion pieces of direct mail in the third quarter of 2009, a 27% decline compared with 7.1 billion in the same period a year earlier, according to Mintel Comperemedia, a research firm that tracks direct-mail marketing.

However, some entrepreneurs who were quick to write off direct mail as too pricey or passé are finding it’s not so easy to dismiss.

Ms. Settle says that at first she blamed the economy for the dropoff, until she “started hearing from customers that they never got their ‘reminder’ in the mail.” Ms. Settle quickly sent a postcard mailing in June, which recouped the 25% loss, she says.

Costs are still taken into account. Many entrepreneurs find that the boiler-plate methods of the past—such as purchasing mailing lists and sending fliers or coupons to a mass audience—often aren’t cost-effective. Instead, business owners are creating personalized mailings, which may include special offers or other valuable information, and sending them to a hand-picked list of current and prospective customers.

Read More of this Article by Teri Evans in the Wall Street Journal…

The Postal Service intends to implement five-day delivery operations as a cost-cutting measure in response to declining use of the mail due to the increased use of the Internet and the economic recession. The Postal Service must file a request for an advisory opinion from the Postal Regulatory Commission. If no Federal law is enacted to prevent it from doing so, the Postal Service plans to implement five-day delivery in fiscal year 2011 (Oct. 1, 2010, to Sept. 30, 2011).

The Postal Service concluded fiscal year 2009 with a $3.8 billion loss, despite Federal legislation that deferred a payment to its future retiree health benefit trust fund by $4 billion. The Postal Service has proposed eliminating Saturday delivery of mail to street addresses to eliminate the operating losses, as it will result in cost savings of about $3 billion annually. Five-day delivery operations will help the Postal Service bring costs in line with declining revenues.

If it receives congressional approval to move forward, the Postal Service plans to provide business and household customers with a variety of options to send and receive mail on Saturdays.

1. P.O. Boxes will receive Saturday delivery.
2. Express Mail service will not be affected – Express Mail will continue to be delivered seven days a week, 365 days a year.
3. Post Offices will remain open on Saturday and additional alternative retail channels will be available.
4. The Postal Service website, usps.com is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Postal Service has developed an operational plan that will provide important details about how five-day delivery would be implemented, and this information will be available at usps.com. Customers will receive multiple advance notices and information about changes in mailing services if and when the Postal Service eliminates Saturday delivery to street addresses. Customers also will be informed of what they will need to know to ensure seamless implementation. The Postal Service will begin providing notices and information at least six months before implementation. Notices and information will be sent to customers in the mail, and will be posted at usps.com, on collection boxes and in Post Offices. The information also will be reported in news media.

Under five-day operations, the following would occur:

Single Piece Mail

• On Saturday, there will be no delivery to street addresses, collection of mail from blue collection boxes or pickup of mail from homes and businesses.
• The general elimination of Saturday collection, processing and delivery of single-piece mail will generally add a day to the delivery of such mail deposited on Saturday or for which delivery to a street address is currently expected on Saturday. For single-piece First-Class Mail, the following will be expected to be delivered on Monday to street addresses: mail with an overnight service standard deposited before critical entry time on Friday, mail with a two-day service standard deposited before critical entry time on Thursday and mail with a three-day service standard deposited before critical entry time on Wednesday. If Monday is a holiday, such mail will be expected to be delivered on Tuesday.
• Mail addressed to a P.O. Box will still be delivered on Saturday. Local firm holdout mail that is not P.O. Box-addressed will not be delivered on Saturday.

(excerpted from and continued on the USPS website….)

Check back here on our blog for information that pertains to your business, to the acquisition and maintenance of your client base, and above all, to enable us to deliver timely industry information to you, our valued customer.

One of the best features of our site is the part you may not yet be seeing! For MailTech customers only, we have created a secure and private tracking and accounting system. Our customers can login via the internet, verify and track the details of their mailing campaigns, and even download postal receipts and copies of the mailing itself!

On behalf of the entire staff at MailTech, I thank you for visiting!

Ken Cathcart,
President
Mail Tech, Inc.

(Screenshot of our secure customer portal)