If you often deal with mails from the postal office, be it as a recipient or the sender, you must be aware of the postage stamps embedded in each letter or parcel. These stamps, also called postage stamps, are there to inform the postal staff of various information about that specific delivery. For example, it may include the date and the point of origin of that mail. It’s also used to indicate that the receiver or the sender has paid for the postal service.
Typically, you’ll only find postal stamps on mails or parcels from the postal office, which is the United States Postal Service in the US. However, independent organizations may also use postal stamps for other purposes. This begs the question, how many stamps do you usually need?
How Postal Stamps Do You Need?
When sending a mail or a parcel, you, the sender, would have to pay for its postage–the amount of money paid for the handling and the other facilities provided by the postal office. This amount varies according to the nature of the delivery and the package’s weight. Similarly, the number of postal stamps needed for each individual package would differ according to its weight. It may also depend on whether you’re sending a letter in the United States or a parcel. Nevertheless, many sources take on this subject, so you should be able to clarify the mechanics of how stamps work and how many you’ll need for each letter or parcel.
Importance Of Postal Stamps
But that also raises another question, why should you worry about postal stamps in the first place? Is there value in using postage stamps for your business? It turns out there are numerous benefits of creating and using your own postage stamp, be it for mail marketing or shipping.
- Raise Brand Awareness
It goes without saying that adding any sort of identification to an object allows you to raise brand awareness. By adding your logo to the parcels, people would immediately know it’s from your brand. Even adding a tag with your brand’s name on it would have the same effect.
Likewise, adding a postage stamp to your deliveries would raise brand awareness. Moreover, since postage stamps are highly customizable, you can set your business apart by using them. For example, if your business offers housekeeping supplies and services, you can create a stamp with a house theme.
In short, postage stamps are an incredibly effective way of raising brand awareness since you can express your brand visually by adding the right visual elements (color, theme, images). Because of this benefit, postage stamps are particularly helpful for startups and small enterprises that are only starting to make a name for themselves.
- Your Business Would Look More Credible
When a person sees a postal stamp embedded on a parcel, they’re often drawn to the conclusion that the enterprise using such a system is reputable. That’s precisely why if you place two similar products in front of an individual, most of the time, they’ll go for the one with a postal stamp.
Postal stamps also evoke a sense of transparency, as evident from the fact that the name of the brand and its logo are included in the stamp. So, apart from raising awareness, adding postal stamps on your products may also lead to a great first impression among your customers. If you’ve been in this industry for a while, you should be aware of the importance of first impressions. This is what decides whether the individual would buy from your brand again.
- Promote Accountability
When dealing with a lot of shipments, your staff would inevitably make mistakes. Although it’s true that everyone makes mistakes, it’s essential to hold them accountable for it if you want to establish order in the office. The beauty of postage stamps is that the device that creates them, which is called a postage meter or franking machine, has a handy feature for this purpose.
A franking machine is capable of recording information about the item where the stamp was embedded, such as who was in charge of that item and its delivery date. Since that’s the case, your staff will be aware that management can track their mistakes. Of course, it’s still not a good idea to micromanage your staff, but the fact that using a system involving postage stamps can spot any errors should be somewhat helpful in improving your staff’s overall productivity.
Furthermore, since the delivery date is also recorded, you can keep track of the ongoing deliveries, which helps detect any discrepancies in the workflow.
- Enables Direct Mail Marketing
There are several ways to promote your business and expand your reach. The most popular ones include email marketing and content marketing. But if you’re looking for a more personal way of advertising your business, direct mail marketing might be worth a shot.
Direct mail marketing is a strategy that involves sending mails to the prospects’ address, with the aim to promote your business. The mail may contain marketing materials such as brochures or posters.
If you intend to use direct mail marketing, then you’ll inevitably have to use postage stamps. That’s why if you already use postage stamps, then you have pretty much everything you need to engage in direct mail marketing, further expanding your outreach.
- Save You Time
While postage stamps are often found in mails and parcels, it’s essential to understand that they aren’t necessarily exclusive to parcels. You can also use it as the official tool for authorizing documents. This can be extremely useful considering that all businesses have paperwork, and paperwork should always have a mark to authenticate the document.
Since it only takes a second to embed a postage stamp into files, it would also save you time, especially if you often deal with paperwork. It also requires less energy than writing your signature. But, of course, you’ll have to use a device for that, which leads to the next topic.
How Can You Create And Apply Postage Stamps For Business Purposes?
Before you can create or use postage stamps for business purposes, you must first get the necessary equipment. The good news is that you’ll only need a postage meter for this project.
A postage meter is a printing machine that prints postage directly onto a mail piece. It may also print the stamp onto a tape, which you can then embed into the mail piece. Postage meters are often used for direct mail marketing, but eCommerce sites, in particular, can use these to embed postage stamps onto their deliveries.
Of course, you can operate without a postage meter. However, if that’s the case, you’ll need to regularly visit the post office for postage stamps.
Takeaways
Although most people think of postage stamps as a thing in the past, it’s still not completely obsolete, especially for businesses. In fact, it’s a way to build your brand without much expense and it also promotes accountability. Postage stamps are also relatively easier to apply than signatures, so it’s great for documents. But, most importantly, it’s the perfect component for direct mail marketing. These should be good enough reasons for a business to use postage stamps.