USPS's bulk mail class for promotional content — lower postage, longer delivery times, and minimum-piece requirements.
Definition
USPS Marketing Mail (formerly Standard Mail) is the United States Postal Service's bulk-rate mail class designed for promotional content sent in volume. It offers lower per-piece postage than First-Class but with several trade-offs: longer delivery times (3–10 business days, sometimes more), no automatic forwarding, no free return of undeliverable pieces, and a 200-piece (or 50-pound) minimum per mailing.
Why it matters
Marketing Mail is most useful for high-volume prospecting campaigns where the per-piece savings outweigh the operational drawbacks. For most small service businesses running recall or reactivation campaigns to a few hundred customers, First-Class is the better default — the savings on Marketing Mail are eaten up by undeliverable pieces and stale addresses.
Example
A regional HVAC company sends 10,000 prospect postcards in Q1. Marketing Mail saves them roughly $0.20 per piece versus First-Class — about $2,000 in postage savings — even though they accept that some addresses will be outdated and pieces undeliverable.
Related terms
- USPS First-Class Mail — The USPS's premium mail class — fastest delivery, address forwarding, and free return o...
- PRSRT STD — A USPS Marketing Mail postage class indicia indicating bulk-rate, presorted, non-First-...
- Postage Permit Indicia — A printed marking on a mail piece that authorizes prepaid postage in place of a physica...
- EDDM — USPS's saturation mail program — postcards sent to every address on a chosen carrier ro...
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