First-class Mail | LetterStream Blog

Reduce Returned Mail with Address Correction by LetterStream

USPS Return Mail

Some LetterStream customers are already realizing the annual savings created by weeding out and/or correcting undeliverable addresses.

If you acquire new mailing lists (member lists, community lists, etc.), especially from non-qualified list providers, it might be worth a little investment to make sure the addresses that you’ve been provided are valid ones.

Using address correction tools to clean up addresses and discover which ones are incorrect could pay for itself with the first mailing. If the list is used over and over, the savings keep accumulating.

Consider a mailing list of 1,200 names. If 5% of the addresses are undeliverable, you would be wasting more than $25 in postage fees alone, not counting time, paper, printing, envelopes, etc. If you mail to the same list each month, that would add up to hundreds of dollars in no time. Another cost to consider is the time and money wasted handling the return mail; collecting bins of returned mail itself, looking up new addresses, resending documents by hand, shred fees for properly destroying returned mail and environmental impacts.

So, here’s an idea… if you acquire a mailing list or simply get a lot of return mail, try running your mailing list through our address correction tools. You can upload any size mailing list directly to our website for cleaning and we will return the results fast; often in less than 10 minutes. We’ll format the addresses to USPS CASS (Coding Accuracy Support System) standards, correct City and Street spellings, flag undeliverable addresses, and attempt to assign the correct zip code with zip+4 digits.

If you use our Deluxe Address Cleanup, which includes NCOA (National Change of Address) lookups, we can even tell you if the person filed a change of address card with the Post Office, letting you know exactly when they moved and where they moved to.

Reducing returned mail is good for business, good for the pocketbook, and good for your sanity!

Send Mail Magically With The LetterStream API

LetterStream API Solution

Ever wish for an even faster way to send out USPS First-Class and Certified Mail?

Our website already saves countless hours of tedious work involved with sending mail, but you might be sending so much mail that you need an even faster way.

If so, the LetterStream API might be the solution you need. It allows you to automatically send thousands of pieces of mail instantly through a behind-the-scenes connection to LetterStream computer systems. Most APIs require programmers to implement them, and ours is no different in that regard, but some of our clients have implemented it in just a few days.

Our API is being used by many different types of companies, including software companies, collection agencies, billing companies, etc. and even individuals who need to send a lot of mail quickly. It has access to many of the mailing products available on our website including postcards, first-class letters, invoices, statements, newsletters, checks and certified mail.

You can advertise your partnership with LetterStream or keep it quiet and price the mailings to your customer however you see fit; because with the API your users and customers can send real mail without even knowing about LetterStream.

To learn more, click here to get detailed information about our API, or simply contact us to get started.

Should You Consider Outsourcing Mailing Projects?

I was working on a proposal this morning for a potential client and found myself pondering the benefits of outsourcing mail room operations and letter shop activities.

For those of you who would like a better printing and mailing solution but are hesitant to enter the world of outsourcing, consider the idea that you are already outsourcing many of your mission critical activities. Yes, that’s right. You are already outsourcing a tremendous amount of your business operations.

You are outsourcing the activities of keeping your money safe to your local bank. You are outsourcing all of your phone conversations to cell and telecom providers. You are outsourcing your electricity to the power company. Once you start thinking about it, the only things you don’t outsource are your core competencies… those things that provide uniqueness to your product and a competitive edge to your organization.

Still skeptical? Check out what other experts say… here’s a good article in Inc Magazine that supports our logic and might shed some additional light.

The question then becomes: Is printing and mailing your competitive advantage? Is folding and inserting what makes your company unique?

If you’d like to see what it might look like to outsource your printing and mailing activities to an organization as reliable as the local power company and probably more helpful than your banking institution please give us a call and let us show you how our unique and competitive solutions can help you focus more on yours.

See LetterStream At The Arizona Chapter CAI Trade Show

Meet with the LetterStream team at the CAI trade show and learn great new ways to create and send mail, including: HOA violation letters, statements, postcards, invoices, collection notices, intent to lien letters, certified mail, annual meeting notices, newsletters, new homeowner packets and even electronic documents.

LetterStream staff will be available to answer questions about outsourcing your mailing projects and streamlining your outbound mail operations.

New products featured at the show include eDocuments, PRO Postcards and an Android app for creating full color, first-class postcards (see newsletter). Rumor has it that the mysterious Letterman, blog writer extraordinaire, may even be present.

The expo is this Friday, April 12, 2013 from 11:30am to 3:30pm at Rawhide, and will be well attended by property management companies and community managers. Rawhide is located in Chandler, Arizona (5700 West North Loop Rd). To learn more about the Arizona Chapter of CAI, visit their website at www.cai-az.org. To learn more about LetterStream, visit our website at www.LetterStream.com.

How Do You Organize Certified Mail Return Receipts?

certified mail green card

These slippery little green cards have a way of getting lost. For you mailroom folks, you probably know them as a PS Form 3811, but the rest of us simply call them green cards. Obviously “Certified Mail Return Receipt” is a more complete term, but it is probably not the term we use when trying to find the one we lost.

So the big question is, how do you keep track of green cards? They are small and get mixed in with empty envelopes that you put in the trash, they fall out of file folders even while in a filing cabinet, they get piled up waiting for a rainy day for someone else to file. Let’s face it, they are hard to file and they are hard to find. There’s nothing like the attorney calling and saying, “We are headed to court, what happened to the green card?”

Here’s a better way to organize your PS Form 3811 receipts… skip the entire paper process altogether and keep your electronic signatures organized online–always available, always filed correctly, always filed instantly, and best of all, never lost.

Wondering how?

The best way to get your certified mail receipt electronically filed is to create your certified mail online. When you use LetterStream or OnlineCertifiedMail.com to create your certified letter, your PS Form 3811 as well as all of the related USPS tracking scans will be available online for you to access when you need then.

The online process of making real Certified Mail is fast and easy, with no forms to fill out, no envelopes to seal, and no trips to the post office. We take care of all that so you can focus on other pressing issues. Oh, and one more benefit… you won’t need to type in that 20-digit certified mail tracking number–you can look up information about your certified letter by searching on the job name or the recipient’s name.

Stop searching for green cards. Use our online tools and let us organize them for you.

How Can You Send Mail on Postal Holidays?

USPS Post Office Sign

LetterStream can send your mail even when the post office is closed for a holiday. This might be hard to believe, but it is true! The United States Postal Service (USPS) will accept our mail at the post office on some postal holidays even though the front doors are locked.

The holidays that the USPS accepts and processes our mail include Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (MLK Day), President’s Day, Juneteenth, Veteran’s Day and Columbus Day.

Our mailing process is a bit different than putting a letter in your personal mailbox or dropping letters in the big blue USPS mailboxes. In fact, we even skip the front counter of the local post office and go directly to the USPS Bulk Mail Entry Unit (BMEU).

BMEU’s process large quantities of mail each day and are basically the main drop point of large mailers across the country. In order to accommodate the large mailing volume, BMEU’s maintain a slightly different holiday schedule than the retail operations of the postal service. This allows larger mailers to keep their mail traveling through the postal system when most other organizations cannot.

So feel free to use LetterStream.com to create first-class mail, postcards, standard-mail and non-profit mail, even on holidays.

The only catch is that on holidays when we take mail to the post office, we are only able to mail Certified Letters if we have more than 200 of them (that is nearly always the case, but it is something to keep in mind anyway).

We recommend creating your certified letters anytime you have them–most holidays we do have enough to meet the postal minimum.

USPS First-Class Postage Increasing on Jan. 27th, 2013

usps rate increase

It’s official. The United States Postal Service (USPS) is increasing postage rates on many of their services, including First-Class postage. The changes are set to take effect on January 27, 2013.

The following is a snippet from a USPS press release:

The price for First-Class Mail single-piece letters will increase by just a penny when prices change in Jan. The new 46 cent Forever stamps will allow customers to mail letters to any location in the United States. Forever stamps are always good for mailing a one-ounce letter anytime in the future regardless of price changes.

Highlights of the new single-piece First-Class Mail pricing, effective Jan. 27, 2013 include:

Letters (1oz.) — 1-cent increase to 46 cents

Letters additional ounces — unchanged at 20 cents

Letters to all international destinations (1oz.) — $1.10

Postcards — 1-cent increase to 33 cents

*Source: USPS.com http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2012/pr12_114.htm

Visit LetterStream.com today to create your First-Class mailing before the new postage rates go into effect. We are always available to help walk you through the process–it just takes a few minutes!

Sending Mail on Postal Holidays

Can you send mail on USPS postal holidays? Sure you can!

Let’s face it, we don’t all get the same paid holidays that the United States Postal Service (USPS) employees get. In 2012, the USPS is closed for 10 holidays.

However, if you are working and you need your mail to go out, LetterStream has the ability to mail your letters on many postal holidays. While the post office front counters are closed and mail carriers are off, there are some holidays that the post office back office is still on duty.

So, “Yes”, the USPS accepts and processes our mail on President’s Day (Washington’s birthday), Columbus Day, Veterans’ Day, MLK Day and Juneteenth.

If you are like us and are working those days, feel free to send your mail to us and we’ll get it mailed on the Holiday for you!

Who’s Faster? You or Us?

Sometimes we hear concern from mailing prospects on the east coast. Their concern is that it will take too long for mail created here in Scottsdale (Phoenix area), Arizona to make it back to the east coast.

This is a reasonable and logical concern, but we are pretty certain that our west coast mail can consistently make it back to the east coast and be delivered faster than east coast mail can.

Doesn’t make sense? Well, consider these points… When the post office is closed on the east coast, we generally have 2-3 extra hours, given the difference in time zones. We have tremendous print and mail capabilities, which means we can probably get the mail printed and inserted far faster than an in-house solution, improving our chances of getting the mail finished first.

Your jobs are not filler work for us, so we won’t put the job off to work on other projects (which we hear happens in some companies where printing and mailing isn’t their bread and butter), further improving our chances of getting the mail out at least one day faster than other companies.

And finally, the best part… our mail departs our facility after the local post office is closed, travels to a USPS acceptance facility, gets sorted to commercial airlines headed for the east coast and typically hits major east coast cities before the sun even comes up. So, when someone is concerned about the speed of mail across the country, we simply say “West is Best!”.

HIPAA Certified

HIPAA

HIPAA Certified. You might know what this is if you are in the medical and/or insurance field. It stands for The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It is a collection of rules that help govern the privacy of patient data and information.

Even if HIPAA doesn’t affect your organization directly, it does in a round-about way if you use LetterStream… mainly because we train our staff on HIPAA rules and follow them internally within our organization. The policies and procedures that we’ve put in place to protect private health information actually protect all our clients’ jobs.

So if you’re a law firm that sends class action lawsuit material or a pool cleaner who sends monthly statements, your information is guarded by the same tools and resources that we use for hospitals, medical offices and third-party administrators.

At the time of this blog post, 100% of our full-time employees and a portion of our part-time employees have passed HIPAA certification!