Jack's Special Delivery:
Money-Saving Tips

Design Success Into Your Next Mailing

No words strike fear more deeply into the heart of a mailing specialist than those of a client who calls to say, “We just OK’d the proofs for our new promotional package and it’s on press right now. You’re going to love the way it looks!”

The operant words there, as you may have already guessed, are “You’re going to love…”

The things I love (and don’t) aside, such words automatically turn mailers into a puddle on the floor, because they mean the client has just spent a bundle on design and printing and gone to press without sharing a designer’s proof with the mail house. And that, my friends, is a sure formula for disaster.

Why, you ask, is it critical that your mailing services vendor review not only the graphic design of a package and all its components as well as stock specifications and proposed stuffing order?

Because there are specific (if somewhat complex) mailing guidelines issued by our friends at the United States Postal Service (USPS). Violate them and you risk incurring a variety of penalties in the form of increased per-piece mailing costs.

And if we don’t know what kind of paper stock you’re printing on, the dimensions of the pieces and insertion order, you may end up having to bear the cost of hand stuffing, which is roughly six times as expensive as machine inserting.

Sadly, a few decades of dealing with designers whose knowledge of direct mail is somewhat limited compels me to go on in this morbid vein. But first I must tip my hat to David Letterman as I share my Top Ten list of common direct mail mistakes. (Drum roll, please Paul!)

Jack’s Top Ten Direct Mail Package Design Mistakes

10) Vertical rules on the address side of postcards that crimp address space. (Talk about a good way to ensure your piece won’t be delivered!)

9) Use of incorrect wording on the mailing indicia – that box in the upper right of a card or envelope where the stamp would normally go. Reprinting envelopes is relatively quick work, but not that quick when a whole mail promotion sits in the warehouse waiting for the printer’s delivery.

8) Misplacement of the return address on the carrier or return envelopes. Uncle Sam says upper left-hand corner. Get too creative and you’ve got a problem.

7) Wrong size or weight on one or all components of the mailing package. Postal regulations are precise with regard to size and weight. An eight of an inch on an envelope or postcard can cost you big time. Use an unnecessarily heavy stock and pay for extra weight. Size a package component wrong and machine stuffers can’t place it in the envelope.

6) Folding and sealing issues, especially for flats mailed without envelopes. Size, weight and folding considerations determine whether a piece can go in the mail with no wafer seals, one or more. Each seal adds 2 cents to your per-piece mailing cost.

5) Omission of a return address on a non-profit mailing piece. The USPS requires one. Omit it and expect to pay for-profit rates.

4) Putting a square box in the upper-right corner of the envelope that says, “Stamp here.” If the respondent doesn’t get that one, your chances of response are pretty low, regardless.

3) Pre-printing a rectangle in the address block. Mail house data processing managers are constantly challenged by list problems and complex file manipulations. Forcing them to format addresses inside a pre-determined area without regard to USPS mailing requirements is asking for trouble.

2) Not calling the mailing services vendor to discuss the project before beginning the conceptual and design process.

…And the Number 1 mistake made by graphic designers and direct response consultants…

1) Delivering materials to the mailer and demanding priority service without having shown the package or piece to the mailer in the first place!

If we’ve sounded a bit strident in this edition of “Jack’s Special Delivery,” it’s because we see the problems noted above more times in a month than we’d like to remember.

Help do your part to preserve our sanity. Have your designer call ahead!

Jack's Special Delivery: Money-Saving Tips

Design Success Into Your Next Mailing

Jack’s Top Ten Direct Mail Package Design Mistakes

Jack's Special Delivery:
Money-Saving Tips