April 24, 2007
During its monthly luncheon in Plainview, N.Y., on April 19, the Direct Marketing Association of Long Island (DMALI) focused primarily on the catalog/multichannel business’s issue du jour: postal. Perry Fernandes, general manager of the PSI Group division of Pitney Bowes, and Vito Fortuna, a U.S. Postal Service marketing strategist, provided details on the upcoming postage increase and offered some less-recently-pubicized strategies for marketers to mitigate it. Fernandes offered the following tips to lessen the burden of the increase. * Consolidate mailings or mail streams when possible * Design letter-size pieces to avoid non-machinable surcharges * Change flat size pieces to meet letter size dimensions * Alter parcel size mail