Few things are more cryptic than the mysterious world of the United States Postal Service. If you
want to pay less than 33 cents to mail anything, you
must learn all about permits, bar coding, address
verification and all their accompanying rules and
acronyms. Like the computer industry, the USPS has created
its own lingo that you must learn in order to
understand what you need to do to save money on postage.
When it comes to saving money, the bottom line
is that the more work you do for the USPS, the
more money you save. The first thing you should do doesn’t cost you anything. Go to your friendly
neighborhood post office and pick up a copy of their
Publication 95, Quick Service Guide: Mailing Made
Easy. This guide is a good introduction to many of
the terms and issues you encounter in the world of
mail processing.
After you know a little more, you may want to
look into software to help you automate the work. A
number of specialized mail management programs
exist. You can spend anywhere from $20 for simple shareware to tens of thousands of dollars for
massive systems designed to manage entire direct mail
operations. Much of the software most small
businesses would need falls somewhere in the $50 – $200 range.
Fun with PAVE and CASS
When you start looking into mailing software,
you’ll run across two acronyms repeatedly: PAVE
and CASS. PAVE stands for Presort Accuracy
Validation and Evaluation. PAVE is a program that
software and hardware vendors participate in to prove
their accuracy in sorting address information according
to USPS standards. As a user, what this term means
to you is that the software helps you by printing out
labels or envelopes sorted in order by the bundle
and tray, just the way the post office wants it. Most
products also will print out PAVE-certified bar coded
tray labels and forms for your mailing as well.
The second acronym, CASS, stands for Coding Accuracy Support System and is designed to
improve the likelihood that your mail gets where it’s
supposed to go. According to the USPS, at least 10% of
the mail going through their systems is undeliverable
because of incorrect addresses. And another 15%
takes longer to get to its destination than it should
because addresses are not written according to USPS
standards. As a mailer, it costs you just as much to
mail something to the wrong address as it does to the
correct one, so verifying your addresses can save you
a lot of money in the long run.
Software that is "CASS-certified" compares
the addresses in your list against a compressed version
of the USPS National Database of addresses. This enormous file includes every US address and is
updated regularly by the post office. The database
includes street addresses and ZIP codes, but no
names. So, you can find out if 1234 Cedar Street exists
in Sandpoint, but not whether or not Mary Jones is
the person living there. To qualify for the highest
postal discounts, you have to make sure that you
receive and use the CD-ROM updates of the database.
When you use the software, the addresses are
converted into the USPS’s standard addressing format
as they are verified against the database. Like
everything else, rules govern how you can address your
mail pieces. The USPS wants your addresses to use all
uppercase text, no punctuation, and standardized
abbreviations for address elements such as RD,
AVE, and BLVD. Most software also automatically
adds features such as ZIP+4 and bar-codes, which
speed delivery and save you postage.
Keep it clean
If you purchase mailing lists, it’s especially
important to "clean" the lists before you use them. Returned
or duplicate mail is a waste of money, so investing in
a bulk mail software product that includes address merging and purging features can be a good
investment. The software goes through and flags any
address in your list that can’t be verified against
the USPS database. You can then delete these
records from your database. The software also can
compare similar addresses to determine if they are
duplicates. You can then merge the two entries into one.
My Deluxe MailList from My Software Company is probably the easiest program to find. This
program includes its own database that is optimized for
producing mailing labels. You can sort and filter
your address list, purge duplicates, and automatically
add ZIP+4 codes. It also prints out the tray labels so
you can give your perfectly sorted mail to the post
office. To CASS-certify and PAVE-certify your mail,
you can use My Software Company’s MyAddressChecker Silver or My AddressChecker Gold, which have
extra tools you can use to get the maximum postal
discounts. However, because the USPS requires that you update the program every two months for
CASS certification, you need to spend a fair amount
of money to keep the program current. My Software
has an Automatic Updates Plan so you can receive
an updated version that is billed your credit card
every two months.
If you already have a database that you are
using, such as ASCII, dBase, or Access files, you also
can import it into My Deluxe MailList or use a
shareware program called Postage Saver Pro. Using a wizard
interface, this program sorts address data files, so
they comply with USPS requirements for standard
(A) presort mail, first-class automated letter mail, or
periodical presort mail. It then prints a report with
piece counts, postage totals, bar coding, and other
information needed for filling out bulk mailing
statements.
BM-Win Plus is another program you can use to sort your mail. According to the developer, it
is PAVE certified by the USPS to handle first
class, standard (A) class, automation and
non-automation- compatible letters, flats, cards, sacks, trays,
heavy pieces, and nonprofit mail. It also is certified for
auto carrier route sorting for first and standard (A)
class automation letters and can print out all the
necessary forms along with the sack and tray bar-coded
labels you need for your mailing. The program
interfaces with a program called ZP4 that can perform
CASS-certification as well.
Like so many other things, to save money,
you’re going to have to spend money. Learning all
about bulk mail requirements is time-consuming and
confusing. And to get the greatest discounts, you need
to spend money for regular updates that allow you
to compare your database against the USPS National Database. If you plan to do a lot of mailing, the
software and the time it takes to learn about it is
certainly time well spent. However, sometimes doing
it yourself doesn’t pay off. For a small business
that does only a few mailings a year, it may be
simpler and more cost-effective to just simply hand the
database over a business that specializes in mailing
and let them figure it out.