Businesses always look for options to maximize their sales, nurture loyalty, and receive reviews. Although digital platforms ensure extensive penetration, direct mailing services stand out due to their presence, offering an intimate and physical touch. There’s no denying that direct mailing is a severely underrated marketing tool.
Direct mail has consistently put up big numbers against its alternative methods, which makes the increased engagement unsurprising. In simple terms, a tactile piece of mail that has been personally curated will help your brand stick out from the deluge of digital notifications that your competitors generate.
More and more brands are considering direct mail service to communicate with their audience or reach a wider market. If you are a newbie, finding out what metered mail is right at the beginning will benefit you. It’s necessary to mention that it can offer widespread service.
Therefore, it only makes sense to prioritize the impact you want to create and the objectives you want to accomplish when integrating metered postage mail into your mailing processes. We encourage you to take a deep dive with us to explore the fundamental understanding and empower your brand to build a more educated, impactful direct mail strategy.
Now what does metered mail mean? When and why are they used? These are some general queries that we often encounter. Let us help you better understand them.
What is Metered Mail?
In simple terms, metered mail is processed through postage meter machines. The machine prints the postage amount alongside a distinct identification number that serves as a testament to the payment on the label.
Reasons to Use Metered Mail
More and more businesses are now screaming: What is metered mail, and how can they accelerate bulk mailing tasks? Let’s discuss it.
- Avail Discounts: The US Postal Service promises excellent discounts for metering your mail.
- Save Time: The postage meter allows you to skip the trip to the post office to purchase conventional postage stamps.
- Convenience: With metered mailing solutions, you can refill your postage balance online without visiting the post office.
- Prevent Overspending Or Underspending: Postage meters ensure integrated weighing scales for accurate weighing.
- Automatic Rate Updates: Postage meters receive updates automatically to offer new prices once the changes occur.
- Security and Control: Secured access to metered mail machines prevents unauthorized use and guarantees responsible expenditure.
- Promotion and Branding: Metered mailing machines allow you to add custom logos, images, and a return address to your physical mail pieces.
- Tracking and Reporting: Most postage meters feature tracking and reporting features that can help you track your postage expenses.
- Package Compatibility: For larger items like packages and large flat envelopes, you can settle on self-adhesive metered tapes.
- Faster Delivery: Metered mail ensures quick delivery since packages are already dated, postmarked, and canceled when they arrive at the post office, ensuring minimal handling.
Types of Metered Mail
You must concentrate on the speed and capacity of a postage meter to find out its type and build.
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Small Business Postage Meters
These are developed for small business setups that send around 35 mails weekly. They offer a humble processing speed of 20 to 40 PPM. The scale available with them can hold only up to 10 lbs. They make excellent office equipment choices for businesses that send out enough mail to necessitate a postage meter but not enough to warrant a high-volume meter.
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Medium / Commercial Postage Meters
These are developed to support larger businesses in delivering a few hundred emails weekly. Commercial postage meters come with partial automation. Moreover, they can manage an extensive range of mail, thereby simplifying the management of demand and the sending of packages for a larger business.
They promise a general processing speed of 100 to 200 PPM. The integrated scale typically holds up to 15 lbs. However, some mail can take up to 100 lbs. of mail.
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Large / Corporate Postage Meters
These are developed to offer the most functions and automation out of all three types of metered mail. The integrated scale on these meters can hold up to a capacity of up to 150 lbs. Similar to the smaller machines, they also provide custom graphics. Moreover, they ensure a processing speed between 100 and 350 PPM, making them suited for large businesses with high mail volumes going out daily.
In simple words, figuring out your current and anticipated mail volume will help you better understand and identify metered mail. It will also help you identify the right postage meter.
What Type Of Mail Can You Send Via Metered Mail?
We’ve compiled a list of items that can be sent via metered mail:
- Large envelopes weighing up to 13 ounces
- Letters weighing up to 3.5 ounces
- Postcards
- Packages
It’s necessary to mention that certain items, such as live fauna, unsafe products, and unpreserved goods, don’t qualify for the metered mail method. Moreover, there may be limitations or overpayment associated with delivering specific metered mail.
Who Should Use Postage Meters?
As mentioned, you cannot buy a postage meter machine outright. Instead, you have to lease it from the USPS, which is responsible for both its authorization and regulation. They ensure the accurate reflection of the postage amount by finding out the current postal rates.
Metered letter services ideally suit businesses with high volumes of letters and packages. You could find meters that accommodate packages of about 2-5lbs; however, there are high-functioning meters available that can work on larger packages.
Postage meters have become integral assets for businesses due to their ability to print postage on demand. Furthermore, their ability to track expenses can benefit organizations that are aiming to optimize their mailing processes for greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Bulk Mail Rules & Regulations for Metered Mail
Direct mail campaigns also go by the name of bulk mail since you are dealing in large—aka bulk—quantity of mail. We have compiled some rules and regulations for using metered mail for bulk mail:
- Permit – To access a postage meter for bulk mail, you would need a permit. You will have to apply for the permit in the city of the mailer.
- Estimated Postage – You can only use the meter to add the postage charge for each item. If a price difference needs to be paid, contact the post office.
- Postage Statement – Per the protocols, you must provide a postage statement with your mailing, physically or virtually.
- Deposit Location – You must take metered presorted business mail to the Post Office where you have a permit. You should not hand it over to your letter carrier or deposit it in a collection box.
- Mail Collection – You must deposit the mail into the collection box within the same day of stamping.
- Date Corrections – If you want to edit the date in the mail, you have only one shot. You must print a new label with the correct date and a postage value of zero.
Challenges of Using Metered Mail for Business
There’s no denying that metered mail USPS promises excellent benefits for your business communication. However, much like their existing alternatives, it’s safe to say that postage meter usage for mailing is not flawless. We have discussed some common problems or challenges below to help you understand what metered mail USPS is.
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Stale Meter Date
As it happens, every meter stamp on a postage meter mail must feature the current date. Moreover, without an accurate date on the mailer, the meter postage stamp will be considered “stale.” Therefore, you must constantly update the meter date daily, and all your emails must feature the actual date of mailing. Similarly, the metered mail must feature the exact deposit date.
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Printing Postage on the Back of the Letter
There may come a time when you accidentally printed the postage on the letter back. Under such circumstances, refrain from publishing it on the envelope front or mail the incorrect item. Instead, get a metered mailing envelope and claim the refund.
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Partial Printing of Metered Postage
Do not proceed with your mailing chore if your metered mail includes only a portion of the postage. Instead, consider getting a new meter stamp and claiming a refund.
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Adding Too Much Metered Postage
Another challenge with metered mail is that you may accidentally add excess postage to a mail piece. Carrying on with such postage will mean your extra postage goes to waste since you get no refund. You must try printing a new metered stamp and then claim the refund.
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Adding Too Little Metered Postage
You may add too much postage or not enough. If you have added minimal postage to your meter mail, you should consider creating a new stamp for the difference in postage and printing it on the back of letters.
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Adding Incorrect Date on the Postage Meter
Lastly, you may be printing incorrect dates on your metered postage. To correct this, you must get a new meter stamp worth zero with the correct date. You may then continue printing the postage as per the mailer type you are sending.
How to Overcome Challenges in Metered Mail?
As you can notice from the earlier section, using a postage meter presents several challenges. Although metered mail involves some automation, the vast majority of the process remains manual and vulnerable to mistakes.
If you choose to replace the metered mail with an automated solution, you stand the best chance of bypassing the issues associated with it. In simple terms, advanced direct mail automation tools ensure a more universal approach that reduces the risk of manual errors.
You should get an advanced direct mail fulfillment solution to preserve valuable resources and time for your business. Moreover, you can concentrate on personalizing your business mailers effortlessly through them.
It will benefit you in sending all types of business correspondence via direct mail, such as
- Bills and invoices
- Brochures
- Postcards
- Collection letters
- Checks
- Statements
- And more.
How does Network Digital help you get a postage meter?
It only fits to admit that understanding and finding out what metered mail is can be challenging at the beginning. In short, it has truly distinctive pros and cons, making it a subjective call, depending upon your individual mailing needs.
We recommend you invest in the high-functioning postage meters from Network Digital. They will benefit you by completely automating your business mailing process to avert any human error. We have developed a top-grade tool that can serve businesses and individuals seamlessly, accelerating your task of sending mail with efficient calculation and printing postage.
We promise excellent convenience and cost-effectiveness. Our postage meter device is competent to handle various mail sizes and weights. You can depend on it to manage conventional mail processes in the digital age.
Mail meters from Network Digital can successfully introduce a seamless bridge between the digital and physical realms of communication to bolster distinctive requirements.
