Direct Mail Tip – Watch your Weight!

When planning a mailing to take advantage of postage discounts, every piece must weigh exactly the same.  The reason for this is that when mail is brought in for acceptance, it is weighed in as a total.  Ten pieces are then counted and weighed.  From this, the math is done to see if the total weight presented is within 1% of the weight calculated.  Since you are allowed only a 1% margin for error, you really need to make sure each piece weighs the same. 

Some of the items that can wreak havoc with this are:

The printer ran out of the desired paper stock in the middle of a job and substituted another.  The paper might have the same desired look/feel as the original, but the weight is off.

A note pad is included with each mailing and the sheets are not counted out to be exac.  Sometimes there’s 1 or 2 extra or under sheets.  Remember, the post office calculates what the weight ought to be based on only a handful of 10 pieces – which weight are those 10?

Who doesn’t love their pet?  We once had a client who’d written a book about pets and did a mailing to several thousand dog owners.  Inside each envelope we placed a whole dog bone.  Do you know that a fish variety and a liver variety weight differently?  What a nightmare!

And then there were the Red Rocks of Sedona to send home.  Like every single rock is going to weigh the same.

Or the spa that mailed small packets of lavender bath salts.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to get equal measurements on that!  This would not be a great idea anymore due to possible anthrax look-alike.  You want to make sure whatever you mail can be received and not confiscated.

The bottom line – plan a mailing that can all be the same.  There are plenty of ways to be unique without having to worry about weight.