MARKETING
Star in your own postage
stamp
Looking for something new to dazzle customers and prospects
this holiday season and make a branding breakthrough for your
biz? How about making yourself or your business the star of
your own postage stamp? This is not the metered variety, but a
full-color, printed picture stamp. It’s official U.S.
postage that can carry your business logo, brand, website URL,
address and more.
Heck, it can carry just about any image you want, including
your own smiling face, your product, your employees —
whatever you want to promote.
Several suppliers are now offering the new custom stamps, with
U.S. Postal Service approval, including Zazzle in partnership
with Pitney Bowes (www.ZazzleStamps.com) and
Stamps.com (www.PhotoStamps.com).
The new customized postage for business use gives small
business owners a unique new way to market their brand and show
customers another level of creativity. Custom stamps were
introduced for consumer use last year but only recently got the
USPS go-ahead to include business brands and logos.
The custom stamps can be used to mail letters, postage or
packages and come in many denominations, including 24 cents for
postcards, 39 cents for first-class letters and up to $4.05.
Each sheet of 20 ZazzleStamps in the 39-cent first-class
denomination costs $13 if you buy at least 100 sheets.
That’s 65 cents per stamp, or an extra 26 cents per stamp
over and above the cost of the postage.
But you don’t have to buy multiples of the same design
in order to get quantity discounts. You get the discount on
multi-sheet orders even if you use a variety of different
designs.
And if you have a direct mail campaign in mind, special
pricing is available for large orders. PhotoStamps, for
example, are available on production rolls for higher-volume
mailings.
The impact of seeing yourself or your logo in blazing color on
an official U.S. postage stamp is significant. And if you are
sending, say, holiday greetings, thank-you cards or other
correspondence, Zazzle can outfit your business with printed
cards to match your stamp (or vice versa).
All types of small businesses can benefit from the
individuality and creativity custom stamps provide, including
car dealerships, realtors, restaurants, designers, service
professionals and many others. It’s an innovative way to
extend your business brand into a whole new realm.
The online ordering process is fairly simple and offers leeway
to design just the type of stamp you want. You upload your
digital photo or business logo and use the online design tools
to position it (including zoom, move and rotate features) and
finish creating your custom postage. The large-format stamps
can be customized in a broad array of colors, layout and text
styles, as well as in vertical or horizontal orientation.
And because of the authentication technology used to print the
stamps, most postal machines will not leave postmarks on the
postage, so your recipients will see your creation
unblemished.
Ironically, some small Internet companies that rely mainly on
e-mail for communication have been first to jump on custom mail
postage.
Be aware, however, that the postage com-panies are picky about
intellectual property. You must own or have a proper license
for the logo or image you want to print, and you could be asked
for proof of that ownership or trademark.
— Daniel Kehrer, editor, www.work.com
dkehrer@business.com
