We are now into the summer months, and it is time to revisit the USPS promotions for 2023. Three of the 2023 promotions are already completed or underway, see the original blog: How to Save on Postage - Part 1. The USPS has added a couple of new promotions for the second half of this year, the Reply Mail IMbA Promotion and the Retargeted Mail Promotion to go along with a repeat of the Informed Delivery Promotion.
Reply Mail IMbA:
This new promotion began on July 1st and runs throughout the remainder of 2023. The registration period is from Many 15th through December 31st. This promotion is for mailers to build engagement by adopting Intelligent Mail Barcode Accounting (IMbA) on their Qualified Business Reply Mail (QBRM). This allows customers to improve visibility of their incoming reply mail while delivering easier payment methods and faster delivery speeds. This promotion is for first class mail as it only applies to Business Reply Mail.
A 3% discount if available if a static barcode is used with your QBRM, and a 6% discount if you enroll in IMbA and use a serialized barcode on your QBRM.
This promotion has a little more set up involved than most of the other promotions. This is especially true if you are not currently set-up to run Qualified Business Reply Mail. A QBRM account will need to be set up and test envelopes will need to be sent in as part of the approval process. All the details can be found on Postal Pro in the Reply Mail IMbA Promotion Guidebook and Resources.
Informed Delivery:
Informed Delivery promotion has a registration period from June 15th thru December 31st and the promotion runs from August 1st thru December 31st. The USPS is willing to give mailers who use an Informed Delivery omnichannel marketing campaign a 4% discount on postage. You must create an Informed Delivery campaign through the Portal, on the Business Customer Gateway, or submit your elements through eDoc submission and develop a campaign that meets best-practice requirements. An Informed Delivery campaign may seem like a daunting task, but with the help of your print and mail provider, the process can be a smooth one. Automation compatible marketing mail letters and flats and automated first-class mail letters, cards, and flats all qualify for the 4% postage discount.
Learn more about this promotion with the Informed Delivery Promotion Guidebook and Resources.
Retargeting Promotion:
The new Retargeting promotion sign up period starts on July 15th and the promotion runs from September 1st through November 30th. This promotion is for first class mail only, marketing mail is excluded from this promotion. Retargeting is the process where you match either a visitor's IP address during a website visit to a customer's physical address. This is triggered automatically by a digital interaction, and a retargeted direct mail piece is produced. This mailer is printed with details from the visitor's interactions on the website. The targeted message is then printed and mailed in a timely manner to the customers home address. Unique offers will normally be a part of the retargeting mail piece, offering the customer extra incentives to complete a purchase.
Eligible mail pieces are first class postcards. They can be a 4.25" x 6" single piece first class postcard, a 4.25" x 6" presorted first class postcard or a 6" x 9" presorted first class postcard. Please note that there is no 6" x 9" single piece postcard rate. You must be able to presort the 6" x 9" postcards to receive the postcard rate at that size. Check out the Retargeting Promotion Guidebook and Resources for all the details.
Suttle-Straus offers a Connected Mail program, which offers a pixel you can put on your website to create a mailing list for direct mail retargeting if this is something you are interested in.
By using USPS promotions, you can ease the pain of the mid-year postage rate increase that takes effect on July 9th, 2023.
Happy Mailing,
Rob
