If you are a non-profit, get a bulk mail permit. We send all of our mailings for a fraction of the cost of a stamp. There's a cost to the permit but it's definitely earned back in savings because of the decrease in cost. Your local post office can help you navigate this system--it's a bit tricky to learn but well worth it. This also enables you to print your bulk mail permit info on the piece directly, so you don't need to apply postage. This will work for your 800 piece list as well as the year end mailer.
We have transitioned from printing in house (we did postcards to avoid envelope stuffing) to outsourcing our printing and having our local print shop do all the things you listed to get the mailers out (print, stuff, sort for bulk mail). For us, it's basically an even comparison in cost between having staff do it and having it outsourced when factoring staff wages, and it saves a TON of headaches.
Day to day, stamps are still a pretty decent solution unless you're mailing tons of things outside of your bulk mailings. We haven't found a need to address that.
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Jillian Becquet
Collections Manager & Registrar
Corpus Christi Museum of Science & History
Corpus Christi TX
Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2016 11:42 AM
From: Cara Scharf
Subject: In-office mailing equipment
Hello everyone,
I've been asked to research mailing houses for my museum. Here's a rough idea of what our yearly mailings look like:
- About 8 times a year we send an event postcard to a list of around 800 people.
- We also send packets of postcards (around 30-40 packets with 5 postcards each) to targeted lists for each event.
- Once a year (around the holidays) we send a large year-end appeal to several different segmented lists of donors, members, visitors, program participants, etc. That has thousands of pieces and always requires a lot of folding and sealing.
- In between we mail daily checks and other miscellaneous things.
Right now, we order stamps before each mailing and then a couple staff who have time help to complete each mailing in a couple hours (or days, as is the case for the year-end mailing). Because our mailing schedule is often unpredictable and our budget low, I am less inclined to farm this work out to a mailing house but I was thinking that perhaps we would be served better by an in-office machine (like those made by Pitney Bowes). I wonder if anyone who has a similar mailing calendar can offer insight into what's worked for your office? And if there's a specific machine you love (or don't) please let me know!
Best,
Cara
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Cara Scharf
Program and Communications Manager
Wagner Free Institute of Science
Philadelphia PA
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