Want to get more catalogs in the mail? Try asking your service bureau or your printer about an add-a-name service.
To qualify for a postal presort discount for a given carrier route, you need to mail at least 10 catalogs to that route. Many times, according to Michelle Farabaugh, a partner in San Rafael, CA-based consultancy Lenser, mailers find they have only eight or nine catalogs going to a route, making them ineligible for the discount.
Adding another name or two to those routes—even though they’re names that you’d likely disqualified during the modeling process—can gain you the postal discount. What’s more, Farabaugh said, changing from a three- or five-digit noncarrier route presort to a carrier route presort results in speedier delivery.
Of course, mailing more to achieve the postal discount does not always pay off. You have to factor in additional costs, such as that of producing additional catalogs and finding the “extra” names.