Quick Printing

DEC 2013

Quick Printing is the only business resource serving the quick and small commercial printing niche in North America. Quick Printing is the authoritative source for business information, emerging technologies, shop profiles and management insight.

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PRIORITY MAIL flat mail was authorized for the simplified address. The EDDM program proved itself and in October 2012 was made a permanent product by the USPS. Pros and Cons of EDDM When comparing EDDM to traditional targeted mailings, EDDM has several advantages: • No mailing permit is required. • The simplified address format means no mailing list is necessary. • All mail pieces will be delivered unless the residence or building is unoccupied. • The saturation postage rate—usually the lowest available— can be claimed. • Charges for mailing services are lower because there is no addressing, presorting, or address verification required. • The mail piece size (standard mail flat) means it will stand out in the delivered mail. However, EDDM does have limitations: • It cannot be targeted to individuals or businesses with specified characteristics. EDDM targets a geographic area such as carrier routes or zip codes only. • The larger size flat mail piece may cost more to print than a letter size mail piece. • EDDM can be limited to residential addresses only (provided there are enough to meet standard mail eligibility requirements), but cannot be limited to businesses addresses only. • All mail pieces must be identical—no personalization (such as variable data printing) that is allowed on a non-EDDM mailing is permitted. What this means is that EDDM is best for neighborhood retailers and service businesses—companies whose target audience is geographically proximate to the location of the business itself. Some examples are local restaurants, dry cleaners, auto repair shops, or any other business whose customers live or work in the neighborhood. • Transportation to next processing plant: Trays are transported, either by surface or air, to the next processing plant. This continues until the tray reaches the mail processing plant that serves the delivery post office. • Sorting: Letters are sorted into specific ZIP codes, then sorted again in line-of-travel order for each letter carrier. • Transportation to delivery unit: Mail for each individual carrier is trucked to the delivery post office. • Delivery: The letter carrier delivers the mail to each address on the route. For each class of mail, the USPS has delivery standards that state the expectation for how long it will take mail to go from entry to delivery. Delivery standards are just that—standards to be met; not guarantees. In general, the farther the mail has to travel from entry to delivery, and the more processing that has to be done by the USPS, the longer the mail will take to be delivered. Using a professional mailer saves time by eliminating culling, postmarking, OCR, barcoding, and sortation steps. Plant-verified drop shipments save time by eliminating some mail transportation steps. ◗◗ Nancy DeDiemar is a former chairman of NAQP and Printer of the Year. She is the co-publisher of Printips (MyPRINTResource. com/10206473), a newsletter subscription service for printers. Contact her at Nancy91762@gmail.com. The USPS Mail Path Understanding how mail travels through the USPS will help mailers estimate delivery times and explain how presorting assists in faster mail delivery. Here are the processing steps for a single mail piece: • Mail entry: The letter is deposited in a street or post office mail box. • Back haul to mail processing plant: Letters are collected from street and post office mail boxes, loaded on a USPS vehicle, and taken to the nearest mail processing facility (usually an SCF). • Culling and postmark: At the SCF, letters, flats, and packages are separated. Letters are oriented so that all addresses face the same way and are right side up, then the postmark is applied. • OCR: The address on the front of each letter is scanned by an optical character reader (OCR). Those that cannot be successfully scanned are separated and sent to a remote encoding center. • Barcoding: A barcode is sprayed on the front of the letter representing the specific delivery address and postal routing. Thereafter, all further sorting is done using the barcode. • Sorting: Letters are sorted for a specific range of ZIP codes that identify the next processing plant and placed in trays. w w w. M y P R I N T R e s o u r c e . c o m For more information, visit MyPRINTResource.com/10004688 December 2013 / QUICK PRINTING 43

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