Snail mail is not dead yet-in fact using it can create an impact that an e-mail or instant message probably won’t have, specifically because people get personal mail less frequently than they used to.
There are many ways to send regular postal mail without having to spend time finding a stamp (or a post office) to mail a physical card or letter. Whether you want to make snailmail part of a marketing campaign or just send letters or postcards periodically to friends and relatives, here are a few good ways to send mail online that will get delivered as physical mail, using your computer:
With Postful you can send physical mail to people using e-mail, Web forms, or API calls. You can include photos, PDF documents, office documents, etc. Postful integrates into any application that can send email. Single mailings are just $.59 for a postcard and $.99 for a one page letter, but the price quickly drops from there for bulk mailings. They do international mailing at a slightly higher price. Looks like a versatile, powerful solution, and you can try it out for free!
With Enthusem you can send printed greeting cards from the web in 30 seconds, they claim. Use/modify your own jpegs or use theirs with a slick, easy interface, though it looks to be a relatively expensive option.
You can send mail online with postalmethods.com, though they really cater to business correspondence. You can send mail from Outlook express, Outlook, Gmail etc. and they can handle periodic notifications. The same people who brought you InterFAX.
Email2postal.com will deliver a standard letter for one dollar, or a handwritten card for five dollars.
With Sendoutcards, you can choose from about 10,000 greeting cards, and get it delivered for a fraction of what it would cost you to buy a card from a store and send it. There is a $99 startup fee, but if you’re looking to send large quantities of cards it could still be cost effective. You can send postcards and three-panel cards as well.
Whatever method you use to send postal mail online, you can be sure that the person on the receiving end will appreciate the physical aspect of the mail. It must carries a little more weight just because they will spend a few seconds of focused attention on it, without your message being diluted by six competing browser windows, as it would be with an email.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Love the article. Has anyone ever tried http://www.notestofriends.com? It was pretty easy for me, and you don’t need to create an account. Send Mail Online