NNA MEMBER ALERT!

Jan 24, 2013

National Newspaper Association members who use the mail are reminded that Jan. 27 is the deadline for applying the Basic Intelligent Mail Barcode to labels to earn automation discounts.

The barcode should not be applied to carrier-route sorted newspapers entered directly at a local post office for delivery within that office. But it will be required by USPS for all other eligible mail sorted to 5-digit and above.

Qualified postal software should handle this conversion seamlessly, though some hard-copy label printers commonly used by newspapers may not be equipped to print it. But publishers must apply for and receive their Mailer ID (sometimes called “MID” by USPS) before the deadline.

For further detail, please review this article by Publishers’ Auxiliary’s Stan Schwartz, who reviewed NNA Postal Committee member Brad Hill’s instruction on IMb in a December webinar by the Iowa Newspaper Foundation. The file is attached here.