Move Update Violations Could Be Costly
It was more than one year ago that we warned mailers that the USPS was beginning to ramp up its
enforcement efforts of the Move Update rule for First Class Mail
(see http://www.mailcci.com/past_issues/022003.asp).
To be eligible for presorted or automated First Class rates, every mailer is required to have updated its
database with change of address information at least every 180 days. In 2002 and 2003, trials in several
areas of the nation revealed that many mailers were claiming presort and automation discounts but had
not used Move Update properly or, in some cases, not at all. At that time, the USPS was
not actively investigating and enforcing the Move Update rule.
Angelo Wider, USPS Manager of Finance Administration, says "now is the time to put the stake in the
sand." After a very lengthy grace period and communicating the need for all mailers to begin using Move
Update, the postal service is now reclaiming postage discounts that were given to mailers
that were found to have not used Move Update properly. The reclaimed postage will be only for the portion of mail
found to be non-compliant.
The USPS estimates that undeliverable-as-addressed mail costs nearly $2 billion every year. As Wider
says, "If mailers get busted, they are going to have to ante up."
Politicians Exempt From Do Not Call Law
Politicians, and other charitable organizations, are exempt from the legislation known as the Do Not Call
list. The law was created to enable citizens to control whether marketers can call their home. But since
non-profits rely on donations, a portion of which is solicited through telephone
calls, they are exempt. But, exempt or not, it is risky for a candidate to call someone who has made it known they do
not like receiving marketing calls at home. So risky, in fact, that politicians are likely to rely on telephone
solicitation very little or not at all for this election campaign.
In recent years, email and internet ads have been used widely by politicians during major campaigns.
But SPAM and internet advertising has taken a big hit and just as telephone soliciting, can cost the
candidate more votes than he wins. The trend against SPAM and pop-up advertising is so
big that internet service providers now include SPAM and pop-up blockers as a part of their service.
Some campaigns are even finding television less effective since the number of channels the average
consumer has access to has risen into the hundreds. This means buying time on one or two networks is
no longer sufficient since voters are no longer limited to just a few television channels.
But one conduit to the voters has remained mostly unchanged since its inception - the mailbox. There is
only one mailbox per home, and it is rare that you would ever find one that you could not mail to. The
mailbox is an American tradition and if there were a patriotic way to solicit votes, the
mailbox would be it. This campaign is likely to be the most direct mail intensive of all.
News Poll
Send your vote to mailto:webmaster@mailCCI.com or vote
online. Visit http://www.mailCCI.com and in the Interactive
menu choose Today's Survey.
Are you registered to vote?
____ Yes
____ No
We'll post the poll results here in next month's e-newsletter.
------------------------------------------------------------
Results of last month's poll:
Do you believe a Do Not Mail registry is in our future?
50% Yes
50% No
See the results of other surveys CCI has conducted online at
http://www.mailCCI.com/data/surveys.asp.
www.mailCCI.com
Many of you may have used the online estimators available on the web sites of many
lettershops and printers. These are the estimating forms where you spend 20 minutes filling out
every minute detail about your direct mailing only to find after you submit your request that you will have to wait
another 48 hours or more for your estimate. And then all you get is a customer service representative calling you
with more questions.
The internet is much faster than that. At mailCCI.com, you
get the full benefit of requesting a direct mail estimate
from your desktop, without talking to someone on the phone, and you get an answer immediately. And
there is no limit to the number of estimates you can get so go back and make a few
changes and see how those changes effect the job's cost.
To be as fast and easy as possible, the online estimator makes certain assumptions about your mailing
based on the average direct mailing, and so it is a best guess that will not always fit your individual
mailing perfectly. Don't use it for price shopping, but use it to get a general idea. And
use it to understand how certain processes effect the cost of a mailing. Then when you're ready to get a more
accurate estimate, contact CCI.
And remember, as always, to all new customers that use the Free Online
Estimate, CCI extends a 5% discount. When you try our fast online estimate you'll see your discount taken
out of your next job with CCI.
The free, fast online direct mail estimate is located at http://www.mailcci.com/estimate.