Email to Snail Mail refers to a capability that allows a user to send an email, which is automatically processed and converted into a postal letter. PostalMethods implements Email to Snail Mail transparently. Here’s what you need to do to turn your emails into letters:
Has this ever happened to you? The printer jams, just as you’re trying to send out your invoices. Or you come up short on envelopes and stamps, a few letters short of your mailing list run.
Some days, we can’t help wishing that everyone could receive their documents by email rather than having to send snail mail.
The plain fact is, every organization has at least a percentage of contacts on our mailing list who can only be reached by traditional “snail mail.” Not only that, some correspondence does need to be tangible, our words do, still, command more authority and more attention when they are printed out on a piece of paper the reader will hold in his hand.
No, it’s not time to write off the traditional letter post, not quite yet, but wouldn’t it be great if the traditional mailing methods were as easy and efficient as email?
Send an Email through the Postal Service
A few weeks ago, a customer called wanting to send documents to the US. The problem was that they were located outside the U.S. International mailing to the U.S. can be expensive and take a long time. Not to mention the issues with reliability. They wanted to send their document directly to a point within the United States, where it could be printed out and mailed via U.S. Postal Service to its destination. PostalMethods was able to provide the service they needed at a cost they could afford.
Not all services are “created equal” but it’s, as always, a question of balancing out your budget with your communication needs. Here are a few features you may want to look for, depending on what your organization needs to accomplish and where the priorities lie:
- Ability to send PDF and MS Office, OpenOffice documents, XML, RTF, TIFF, JPG and many more;
- Sending mail First Class. Not all mail methods are created equal. You can get a much cheaper rate, but you will pay for it with a much slower delivery rate. At PostalMethods, all mail is sent First Class USPS. Delivery normally takes 3-5 days.
- High-quality print-outs; At PostalMethods we have large volume printers that can print up to 200 pages per minute. In 2018, we printed and mailed 41.5 million documents.
- Quick turn-around time on printing and mailing letters, ideally, within the same business day, or 48 hours at most;
- PostalMethods is HIPAA compliant and SSAE 16 Certified. We are audited yearly to ensure we continue to follow the protocols necessary to keep your documents safe and secure.
Advanced users with large-volume mailing lists might also want to look for sending mails using postal API integration with your own list management software, and/or quantity discounts.
Every email-to-mail service has slightly different features, but the price range for the basics would seem to be fairly consistent across the board. A one-page letter to an address within the United States should cost you somewhere between 76 cents and $1.02 to send. Beyond that, there’ll be a small charge for each additional page; and color printing will cost extra. International letters (those destined for addresses outside the United States) carry a surcharge to cover the extra postage.
Bottom line is that you should consider the benefits of using this type of service. You no longer have to print, manually fold, insert into envelopes, add a stamp and mail letters. In one easy step, PostalMethods can do it all for you.