Marketing Mail (previously called Standard Class) commingling may not be available or established enough at some comminglers the way First Class commingling might be. Some comminglers have a lot of it and some have very little. If this class of mail is the bulk of what you have, then you will want a commingler that can provide all of the density required for deep USPS entry, low postage rates, consistent drops, and creative processing methods to save on fees. Marketing Mail commingling becomes much more complicated because of the addition of drop shipping and the inconsistency of volumes.

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Not all mail is destined for commingling. Marketing Mail is the perfect example of how you can benefit in a combination of many different ways of mailing. Some comminglers would like customers to believe that sending them all of your mail is the best way to improve your bottom line. In reality, it only makes sense to send all of your mail to them in rare circumstances. If you use a printer or letter shop to produce your mailings and those facilities can submit to the USPS themselves, then one of the ideal scenarios is for them to do the sort of all of the 5-digit SCF mail and submit that portion themselves while sending the remaining portion to the commingler. It is also not uncommon for letter shops to insist commingling is not right for some or all of your mail. These companies don't typically like to split a mailing into two parts (commingling and direct submission). To achieve the best postage possible, this is the best approach. They also would like to make the money for doing the sort or getting the drop ship discounts. Drop ship discounts are a large form of revenue in Marketing Mail.

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Some comminglers have creative systems to simplify the processing in their operation. This may include front end work done by the printer, letter shop, or yourself, typically referred to as "One Pass" processing. Initially, this seems like more work on your part or more cost but the important factor in this is how it plays a part in your overall cost per piece. Usually doing this extra work up front will get you discounts per piece beyond your expense to do it. It actually turns out to be less work after the initial transition to the new process. Some companies require data files, some require the mail to be produced in a certain order such as zip code order, and some may possibly require nothing. A few of these processes seem very complicated and time consuming when in fact they have proven to be not so very different than if the letter shop or printer submitted the mail themselves. The reason comminglers ask for the mailing to be presented to them in this way is to increase their capacity by reducing handles per piece, reduce their overall efforts, reduce cost, and require the mail less time up front for sorting.

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Although this may initially seem like the commingler is reaping all of the rewards for your extra work, below are a few areas that will show you may benefit from this:

• Later delivery time to the commingler.

• The commingler now has more capacity because they have fewer handles per piece to complete the mailing. More capacity results in larger mailings resulting in lower postage and quicker delivery.

• Less machine processing. The more times a piece goes through a sorter, the more distorted or damaged it gets. This sometimes causes your mail to show up at your customers mailbox torn, wrinkled, dirty, smudged, and just plain ugly.