When you mail something, you want to make sure that it gets to the location safely and in a timely manner. This is especially important when you are looking to send out marketing materials that can be time-sensitive. You need to make sure you can get your direct mail campaign out on time and in the correct format so there are no delays.
To help find businesses that will do this for you, you can look for companies like Walker360 that have their Full-Service Certification from USPS.
What does it mean to be a Full-Service Certified Mailer?
A Mail Service Provider, or MSP, means that they offer a wide variety of solutions for full-service mailings.
To get Full-Service Certification as a mail provider, you must demonstrate to USPS that you can handle mail and live up to their high quality. To apply for this certification, you must have been submitting full-service mailing for at least 90 days and monitoring their mail quality in the Mailer Scorecard. The Mailer Scorecard keeps track of how your mail has been performing and how many errors have occurred.
Next, USPS will evaluate your metrics over the past three months and make sure that they are meeting their quality thresholds. Thresholds include things like your barcode uniqueness errors must be 2% or under, COA errors must be .5% or under, mailer identifier errors must be 2% or under, and other various mailing thresholds that hold businesses to the highest mailing standards. Once a company is certified, it must maintain these thresholds. USPS will conduct an annual review of a company’s Mailer Scorecards.
There are quite a few benefits that come with being a certified mail service provider. As a provider, you will be able to get the best prices and discounts from USPS. For companies like Walker360, this allows us to pass our savings on to you so you are getting the best price possible. Certified providers also don’t have to pay annual permit fees and there is no cost for the visibility and tracking of the mailing. A single permit allows multiple business mail entry sites. You also can check the addresses on your mailing lists with the National Change Of Address, or NCOA, which we will talk more about later.
There are a few different types of Mail Service Providers (MSPs).
Print and Mail MSP: A print and mail provider will print, presort, submit your eDoc, and submit your mailing.
List Mailer MSP: List mailers will get mailing lists, make sure your mail pieces have all the right components to them, address everything correctly, presort mail, submit the eDoc, and mail the mailer. They are very similar to print and mail MSP, except they do not print mailing components.
Presort and Commingle Letter MSP: These types of providers will make letter-sized mail from customers and presort/commingle the pieces together to potentially qualify mailing for presort discounts.
Presort and Comail/Commingle Flat MSP: This is just like the Presort and Commingle Letter MSP, except they will handle flat-sized mail pieces.
Copal or Consolidator MSP: A Copal or Consolidator provider will consolidate your mailings into trays or bundles with other mailings to get you more discounts on mail. They co-palletize, consolidate, and submit the eDoc. They also can handle both letter and flat-sized mail.
How will a Mail Service Provider, like Walker360, benefit you?
Here at Walker360’s printing and mailing factory, we are able to send out postcards, letters, flat mail, first-class mail, marketing mail, and periodicals with our Print/Mail and List Mailer certifications. But how does doing business with a Mail Service Provider benefit you, the customer?
Walker360 will be able to provide you with an address list for your mailers, as well as manage the list for you. You can have your mail printed and presorted. Once your mail is out, we will manage your mailing feedback, ACS data, and monitor your mail quality reports.
We also get destination discounts, meaning that if the mail is sent to a USPS processing and distributing center, we can qualify for discounts. This includes Destination Network Distribution Centers (DNDC), Destination Sectional Center Facilities (DSCF), local post offices (also known as a Destination Delivery Unit or DDU), and even our own warehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. When we get discounts, we are able to pass those savings back on to you by offering you a great price and extraordinary service.
We can also send our mail to one of these USPS centers to make sure that the mail we are sending will meet all the parameters for mailing. This will avoid any issues and delays in your mailing. Things like sizing, postage rates, weight, and other factors will be evaluated to make sure your packages will be on their way quickly and efficiently.
Not only this, but we can ensure that your mail is getting to the right people by running mailing lists through the National Change of Address, or NCOA.
What is the National Change of Address?
Think about how often you’ve moved in your life, or how many people you know who have moved. By utilizing the NCOA, we can make sure that you aren’t wasting money by sending mail to either the wrong people or the wrong address. We can then use that information to update our mailing lists so we always have recent and reliable information.
We can also utilize Address Standardization software. This will help deal with any incorrect or mistyped addresses. By running addresses through this, you can determine if zip codes correctly match the city they are supposed to, if the streets exist and the street numbers lie within the bounds of the zip code, and if the address is a business or a residence. If it is a residence, you can determine if it is a single-family or multifamily unit.
This also helps with the standardized zip codes that have +4 more numbers on the ends. We can make sure that your mail has the correct zip code with nine digits so it is valid in the United States.
Overall, it’s better to pick a business that has USPS certification. You will be able to rest easy knowing that the standards of the certifications are high, so your mail will be safe. It will get out on time, in the correct format, at the best price.
To start printing and mailing today, reach out to Walker360 in Montgomery, Alabama.
