Learn About Bulk Mailing Getting Started with Postal Bulk Mail: blue dotSaving Postage with USPS Marketing Mail blue dotPreparing and Submitting Your Mailing blue dotIs it a Postcard, Letter, Flat or Parcel? blue dotIntelligent Mail Barcoding (IMB) blue dotSending Political Campaign Mail
Verifying Your List: blue dot"Move Update" (NCOA) Requirement blue dotCASS Certification Using Other Bulk Mail Categories: blue dotPresorted First Class blue dotPeriodical Class blue dotBound Printed Matter blue dotBulk Rate Parcels Good Things to Know: blue dotUsing an Indicia for Bulk Mail Postage blue dotUsing a Mail Merge to Print Barcodes (w/video) red dotCan Bulk Mail be Personalized? blue dotWhy Print Providers should offer Bulk Mailing

Yes, you can include some personalized
information in bulk mail

Scott Hochberg Scott Hochberg


We all know that Marketing Mail bulk mail can't include personalized information, right?

Wrong!

Postage Saver software makes postal bulk mailing easy Well, of course, you can include the recipient's name and mailing address in the letter.

But sometimes, you can also include additional information like the amount of a previous donation, or a subscription expiration date, and still use send the letter as Marketing Mail bulk mail.

You can include personalized information if:

red dot the mail piece contains explicit advertising for a product or service for sale or lease, or an explicit solicitation for a donation; and,

red dot all of the personalized information is directly related to the advertising or solicitation; and,

red dot the exclusive reason for including all of the personalized information is to support the advertising or solicitation in the mail piece.

The personalized information must have no purpose other than supporting the solicitation.

For example, you can include the amount of a previous donation in a letter asking for another donation. But, if you also use the letter as a tax receipt for the previous donation, that's a second purpose unrelated to the solicitation, and it forces the letter to need to go First Class.

Here's a graphic to help explain this:

When can you include personalized info in a Marketing Mail bulk mailing


Here's the relevant USPS rule, along with several related USPS rulings:

 Rule 243.2.2, Domestic Mail Manual: Contents for Marketing Mail -- Personal Information
 Ruling PS-322: Donation Solicitation/Previous Donation Receipt
 Ruling PS-238: Renewal Notices
 Ruling PS-323: Computer-Prepared Mail Pieces Entered by Authorized Nonprofit Mailers