Springfield-based Gospel Publishing House sends more than 5 million pieces of business mail annually. The publishing wing of Springfield-based Assemblies of God also mails about 160,000 periodicals weekly.
Without strategic efforts, GPH may have to spend more than its annual postage budget of $2 million.
Beginning May 11, postage for a 1-ounce, first-class envelope increases 2 cents to 44 cents, while the price for the first ounce on flats - large or irregularly shaped envelopes - increases 5 cents to 88 cents. Commercial standard mail pieces weighing less than 3.5 ounces will cost up to 27 cents to mail, an increase of 1.3 cents.
Springfield Postmaster Bill Brayman said the rate increase is directly tied to two factors: decreasing mail volumes, which stretch the organization's infrastructure, and increased energy costs.
"We've been fortunate that gas prices are down from what they were 12 months ago, but for every penny that gasoline prices increase, it means $8 million to the bottom line of the Postal Service," Brayman said.
Rate increases have been an annual event since 2006, when a law passed that limited postage increases to the annual rate of inflation. Tom Barr, owner and president of Ozark Mailing Service, said that because of the limit on possible rate increases, customers can expect to see postage hikes continue.
"Instead of raising rates in a large amount once every three years, they have to make an annual adjustment," Barr said. "Unfortunately, we'll be seeing postal increases every year for the next several years."
GPH Mailing and Shipping Manager Mike Coble said the publisher is removing bad addresses from its mailing list and making other efforts to keep postage expenses steady. Coble said he's more concerned about the financial benefit received from each piece mailed.
"Postage used to be seen as a necessary evil, but now we look at mail more as a marketing and communications tool," Coble said. "So we're not as concerned with an operational cost increase as we are about the return on investment for each piece we're sending. If each piece we send translates to a sale or a new customer or donor, it pays for itself."
Despite the increased costs, Brayman said businesses do have ways to save. Customers with larger amounts of mail can make sure it's presorted by adding the proper bar code and grouping by city or ZIP code.
"It's kind of a work-share agreement, where they do a little bit more work and get a lot more savings," Brayman said.
Businesses can save more than 10 cents per piece on first-class mail barcoded and sorted to a five-digit ZIP code, with lesser savings for less-specific sorting.
There are restrictions, however; customers using first-class mail must have a minimum of 500 pieces to qualify for presorting discounts, while the minimum for standard mail is 200 pieces.
Barr said that's where companies like Ozark Mailing come in; for a fee, customers who don't meet the minimum mailing levels can have their mail combined with that of other companies to qualify for savings.
GPH is well aware of the cost benefit of doing some of the work in advance, according to Coble.
"We have a full-time staff of 12 employees whose job it is to maximize the per-piece savings by doing whatever we can to manipulate the data, presort or use other software," he said. "That equipment and those software packages pay for themselves very quickly."[[In-content Ad]]
