Everytime I take this cake to a function, I get requests for the recipe.  I wish I could say it is my original recipe but it was given to me by a friend but I am claiming it for my own as I have been making it for years.  I love it because I always have the ingredients on hand and it is so easy to make.  You don’t have to wait for the cake to cool, you just pour the icing over the hot cake and if served warm it is just wonderful.  Hope you enjoy.

cocoa cake

1 cup water (boiling)

1 stick butter

½ cup vegetable or canola oil

4 tablespoons cocoa

2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

2 eggs

½ cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine water, butter, oil and cocoa. Heat until blended.  Pour over sugar, flour and eggs.  Beat well.  Add buttermilk, soda and salt.  Beat well.  Add vanilla.  Pour into greased 9 x 12 ½ pan.  Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

Icing

1 stick butter

6 tablespoons buttermilk

4 tablespoons cocoa

1 box confectioners’ sugar

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)  I love black walnuts

½ teaspoon vanilla

Combine butter, milk and cocoa.  Bring to a boil.  Add sugar, nuts if used and vanilla.  Pour over hot cake.

Yes, I do have buttermilk on hand because I am a true southern cook and I make biscuits quite frequently.

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If you are not already using the Intelligent Mail ® barcodes, you will certainly want to do so by May 2011 when automation discounts on letter-size and flat-size mailpieces take affect.In May 2011 the POSTNET barcode will be ineligible for automation prices.  Additionally, the PLANET Code ® barcode, used with Confirm® service for mail tracking, will be retired in May 2011.  To receive Confirm service after this date, you’ll need to use the Intelligent Mail barcode.

The advantages of Intelligent Mail® barcode are:

• Holds all routing, sorting and additional services information in one barcode.
• Offers OneCode ACS® at less cost than traditional ACS®
• Provides more real estate on the envelope for marketing messages
• Allows customers to receive automation prices in May 2011.

Apply the IMb to these mail classes and processing categories:

• First-Class Mail letters and flats
• Standard Mail letters and flats
• Periodicals letters and flats
• Bound Printed Matter flats
• Business Reply Mail

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Our mailing manager mentioned to me that the most frequent phone call she receives concerning US Post Office requirements is “Why is the zip code wrong on my Business Reply Art?”

As with anything that we print, the graphics department sends a proof of the reply envelope or card artwork to the customer to be approved before the files go into production.  Upon receipt of the artwork we often receive a phone call asking “Why is the zip code wrong on my Business Reply Art?”

The United States Post Office defines Business Reply Permit as; a service that allows a permit holder to receive First-Class Mail and Priority Mail back from customers and pay the postage only for the returned pieces. These pieces must have a specific address and format. Postage and per piece charges are collected when the mail is delivered back to the permit holder.

When someone opens a Business Reply Permit, an escrow account is opened at the USPS. We then request the Business Reply Mail artwork from the Mail Piece Design Analyst at the USPS. As these pieces come back the postage and fees due are then taken from the escrow account, and that is where the “strange” plus four on the zip code comes into play. If the plus four on the Business Reply Mail piece were the same as your normal address the envelope would proceed directly through the mail stream to your business or nonprofit office with your information or donation. But since you have sent a Business Reply Mail piece with a Reply Permit on it you have committed to paying for that return postage. The unique plus four on your reply mail sends the envelopes first to the Business Reply Mail department of the USPS where the permit it held. The USPS then uses that plus four to look up and collect from your escrow account the postage and fees due for that piece before sending it on to your location or holding it at your post office box for pickup. Another frequent question is why is the plus four on our envelopes not the same plus four as the one on our reply postcards? A plus four is not unique to your Business Reply Permit it is unique to that mail piece. A 4×6 reply postcard that returns at .28 cents plus fees will have a different plus four than your #10 standard envelope weighing 1 oz that returns at .44 cents plus fees and if you happen to have a larger 9×12 envelope returning it will have a unique plus four of its own. As a rule, Business Reply Artwork should always be requested from the postal service so that they can assign the unique plus four required to collect the correct postage for that mail piece.

Courtesy Reply mail is an envelope or postcard that has the required bar-codes and FIM mark but has a place stamp here, in the upper right hand corner where the stamp or permit normally located. Postage is not collected by the post office because the individual mailing the reply back to you is applying the appropriate postage. The piece goes directly to your organization and would not require a unique accounting plus four zip code.

 The post office does require that when you have an outgoing mail project that is being bar-coded, in order to get the discounted automated postage rates, the reply card or envelope must also have the bar-code and FIM marked. Failure to do so will result in your entire mailing being disqualified for bar-code rates.   O.K. we have heard from non-profit mailers that they haven’t done this in the past and have not been charged by the USPS.  We tell them they just haven’t been caught yet.  We have all been guilty of speeding and we don’t get caught every time we speed, but the odds are we will get caught eventually and then we have to pay the fine. Paying a fine is not what anyone of us wants to do, so just make sure that the reply envelope meets USPS postal specifications.

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Do certain colors really draw our eye to it?  I had a meat company as a customer and he was putting coupons for discounts for his product in the meat counter a local grocery stores.  He printed them on brown paper and was not getting good results.  I suggested that he print the coupons on a bright pink.  Afterwards, he reported that more people were using the coupons.  Some colors just naturally draw our eye, have you ever noticed the day glo green or orange that the transportation workers wear when working on the highways. The same is true in direct mail.  According to Deliver Magazine here are some of the things associated with colors;

• Blue-based reds (raspberry) - associated with more expensive products.
• Yellow-based reds (tomato red) is imagined as less expensive.  Could be used if you want to downplay a high price.
• Orange - affordability
• Yellow - is the first color the eye sees, and when used with dark colors for high contrast (use yellow back ground with black type as yellow type is very hard to read) it becomes more powerful and easy to read.
• Green - conveys possibility and hope.
• Blue - conveys confidence and safety, making it a great choice for financial and medical institution mailers.
• Purple – a hot color right now but not particularly for direct mail.
• Black - conveys power, promise and the ability for high contrasts.
• White - implies sophistication and formality.

Hope this helps with your next mailing.  I advise to keep your mailing clean and simple, do not try to write a book on a post card.  If your direct mail copy is too busy, they will simply not read it. You want to get your message across and hopefully get the recipient to contact you.  You can give them details and more information at that point.

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Who knew, but the University-Green Bay says that switching fonts from Arial to Century Gothic, uses 30% less ink.  This was great news for us and we have switched to Century Goth to see if we can achieve that savings. Ink for our mailing machines is one of our major expenses. A green- friendly font and save money too, now that is a win/win situation.  Sorry for the cliche.

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I think that I may be typical of consumers today.  I don’t like commercials so I mute them if I am watching TV and I play my Ipod in the car so that I don’t have to listen to them because, to me, they are irritating.  I have read reports that the younger generation is a hard generation to reach for marketing because they don’t read the paper,  as much as my generation, they don’t listen to the radio and I imagine the only watch a certain segment of TV.

Direct mail is the one way to reach all of the generations. Recently, in Deliver® magazine they defined the generations as; GI Generation (born before 1925) with buying power being negligible, Silent Generation (born 1925-1944) with buying power considered negligible, Boomers (born 1945-1964) with $2 trillion in annual buying power, Gen X (born 1965-1984) children of the Silent Generation who are regarded as technology savvy but do not respond to Internet marketing efforts, Generation Y (born 1985-2004) 100 million Americans, consuming more than 5 times the Baby Boomers and finally Generation Z (born 2005-present) this generation is already more than 20 million strong and is will present a powerful consumer force in the future.

I am in the Silent Generation and the smallest generation in the 20th century.  This was due to the low depression-era birth rates and World War II.  In fact I was born while the war was still being fought.  The good thing about direct mail is that mail is delivered six days a week, for now,  to every address in the United States and to every generation from the GI Generation to to Generation Y.  It is not intrusive and it can be set aside and read at the recipients leisure.  Mailing lists can be purchased with demographics for age groups so that you can reach the generation that you want to target.

Want to target generation Y? There are 100 million of them opening their mailbox everyday. Direct mail is a good way of putting your message in their hands. Even us in the silent generation are opening our mail boxes and responding to marketing offers.  I look for local restaurants who are offering specials, discounts at my favorite clothing stores and I never know when there is going to be something new going on in town that I don’t know about. Can’t wait for the mail to run today.

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I had visitors today from a company that I have been doing business with for years.  The purchasing agent for this company has been to our facility many times but his boss and a couple of other support staff, had never been to our company.  I got the opportunity to show them around and explain the various departments.  Essentially we are running 3 business in one..graphic design, printing and mailing.  Even though we had done business for years they were still surprised at all of the things that we do. 

Sometimes after we have been in business for a number of years that we get lulled into believing that most people know who we are and what we do.  Our business name is Burns Mailing & Printing but I don’t know how many times we have been doing a printing project and the customer ask, “you do mailing too”? The same with mailing, some are suprised that we do printing as well. We cannot afford to make that assumption.  Every sales person has had the experience of working with a customer and one day calls that customer’s company to find that the person they have been doing business with is no longer employed there and the new person has no idea who you are and what your company does.  Back to square one in building that relationship with another buyer.

How do I keep my business in front of the most people?  Direct mail of course.  Unlike television, radio and some social media, the recipient of a direct mail can lay the information aside and look at it later when they have time or in my case I may save it until I have a need and then I have a resource for the service or product that I anticipate buying. One of the things I love about advertising with direct mail is that it is measurable.  When I mail out a new post card and we have phone calls telling us they got our card, I know that my direct mail campaign is working.

On a personal note, my Grand Daughter (age 2 1/2) is going to be coming from Nashville today to visit with us for a few days.  Of course, we are always thrilled to see her.  We have been using Skype to keep in touch with her for a couple of weeks now and that is the next best thing to her actually being here. I love technology!

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1.6.11 Products Mailable at Nonprofit Standard Mail Prices

[1-4-10] The following products are mailable at Nonprofit Standard Mail prices:

a. Low-cost items within the meaning of 26 USC 513(h)(2), Internal Revenue Code. At the beginning of each calendar year, the value of low-cost items is adjusted for cost of living. Effective January 1, 2010, the cost of such items cannot exceed $9.60. This cost is the cost to the authorized organization that mails the items or on whose behalf the items are mailed.

b. Items donated or contributed to the qualified organization. Such items do not have to meet the definition of a low-cost item.

c. A periodical publication (as defined in 707.4.0) of a nonprofit organization unless it is ineligible under 1.6 to be mailed at the Nonprofit Standard Mail prices.

Each year the USPS gives new rules for nonprofit organizations who mail products.  More information can be obtained at www.usps.gov.

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I wonder how some of you are doing with your move update changes and if you have paid any penalties for bad addresses?  The USPS is so quick to come out with new rules, but before they go into affect, they somehow get changed before the effective date.  We were told when the NCOA update penalties went into affect January 4, 2010 that the mailer would not know that the addresses were bad until after the mail was in the system.  However, when we talk to our local USPS they told us that they knew immediately that the addresses were bad and the customers are given the option of picking up the mail and correcting the bad addresses or paying the extra postage.  I think that is a much better scenario than to have the mail enter the system and then find out that the postage is going to be much more. The USPS reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live skit where the comedian says “forget all that other stuff I said.”

On a personal note, I haven’t posted very many blogs in the past few months as I have been sick.  I am feeling great now and looking forward to spring.  I have had a very uplifting morning today because I thought about all the blessings that I have and how grateful that I am to live in the greatest country in the world.  My prayers are with the people of Haiti and the rescuers trying to help. One of my best friends son is in the military and is there helping in a medical field hospital. When I think about the little problems that I have, they pale in comparison to the tragedy in Haiti.  The things we take for granted, food, water, medical care and a roof over our head is something that they do not have and may not have for a long time. “This is the day that the Lord hath made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.”  I don’t know about you but I am planning on a great day.

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We finally have a decision on penalty fees for bad addresses.  The effective date is January 4, 2010.  Below is the DMM advisory published today.  This applies to both Standard Mail and First-Class Mail.

DMM Advisory dated October 16, 2009

Move Update  

The Move Update standard requires periodic matching of a mailer’s address records with customer-filed change-of-address (COA) orders. Its goal is to reduce the number of mailpieces in a mailing that require additional handling for forwarding or return.

Yesterday we filed notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) to describe the new method our Business Mail Entry Units (BMEU) will use to determine whether or not to assess the $0.07 Move Update charge to First-Class Mail and Standard Mail pieces evaluated during acceptance.

Originally intended for a Standard Mail implementation date of May 2009, we deferred the effective date of the new standard until January 4, 2010. For consistency with the treatment of Standard mail, we also apply the same effective date to First-Class Mail. Both classes will be assessed the additional postage charge on pieces determined at acceptance to have an error rate above a 30% tolerance level.

Sample testing will be done for each mailing accepted at MERLIN locations, and the BMEUs will provide feedback to the mailer on the effectiveness of their Move Update process. The assessment applies only to those pieces in the mailing that are found to exceed the tolerance level, based on the sampling.

Example: if a mailing is found to have an error level of 50%, then 50% minus 30% (tolerance level) = 20% of the mailing that will is assessed $0.07 per piece.

Any mailing that has five or fewer update errors is not assessed the fee, regardless of the percentage that is not updated.    

Complete details of the assessment process are available at: http://ribbs.usps.gov/move_update/documents/tech_guides/Move_Update_Advisement_Policy.pdfh

The Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) is available on Postal Explorer (pe.usps.com). To subscribe to the DMM Advisory, send an e-mail to dmmadvisory@usps.com. Simply indicate “subscribe” in the subject line.

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