Annual Meeting and Secret Ballot Mailings
It's that time of the year again, and you need to send out your secret ballot mailings. This can be accomplished on our website quite easily, so feel free to follow this step-by-step process to accomplish your task!
First, if you haven't already created your free LetterStream account, feel free to do so here.
Next, you'll want to make sure all of your documents have been created and are ready to upload to our website. You'll need your documents saved as PDF's, and you'll also need an address list saved as a csv.
Once you login to your account, click on the Send Letter(s) button, and then follow these steps:
- name your mailing
- under the recipient section, select Address List
- under the mailtype section, select USPS first-class mail. Your selections should look like this:
- click Continue
The following screen is the "Address Mapping" screen. If you're unfamiliar with this page, feel free to click here for assistance. Once your address information has been mapped out, click Continue
- now you'll be on the return address page, where you can add your return address for the mailing within form on the left-hand side. Once done, click Continue Job
Now you're on the Inserts Review page. Here's where it gets fun! First, go ahead and upload the PDF documents you need to include in the mailing (in order that you want them to be inserted into the envelopes).
Next, click on the Add An Envelope button, and add the #8 secret ballot option to your mailing:
Then, click on the Add An Envelope button again, and this time select the #9 return envelope that you want to include with the mailing. This envelope will be the envelope that will come back to the return address, and will include the sealed secret ballot envelope inside of it. There are a few different #9 options you can choose from (such as a basic #9 option, an option that automatically includes the recipient information as the return address, an option that includes pre-paid postage, etc).
If you'd like to go a step further and add custom verbiage to the #9 return envelope feel free to follow the next steps, otherwise you're all set! Now you have a complete mailing with the secret ballot envelope options included, and you simply need to continue to the shopping cart and pay for the mailing.
Adding custom verbiage to the #9 return envelope
Occasionally we'll have a customer who wants to add extra verbiage to the #9 return envelope (such as "SECRET BALLOT ENCLOSED"), or they need to required their recipients to sign the return envelopes. If that's you feel free to follow these extra steps:
- download one of the below templates to your computer. Open the document in a PDF editor (such as Adobe Acrobat), and modify the text to read whatever you'd like for it to say. (To ensure this doesn't negatively impact USPS guidelines, please don't move the location of the text boxes, modify the font characteristics, or exceed 25 characters with your messaging.) Then save the file
custom verbiage and signature required
- next, navigate back to the Review Inserts screen and click on Add An Envelope again
- scroll down to the "Upload a New Custom Envelope or Overlay (PDF file only)" section, attach the envelope template (PDF) you just created, and select the following option:
Be sure to select the correct size envelope. If it's a standard #9 sized return envelope, select the option "100% Client Provided Artwork #9 Envelope"
- click Upload and Add to Mailing
Wallah - you're done!
From here you can click Continue To Recipient Review, where you can view the proofs of your mailing. The proofs are going to show you samples of exactly what we're going to print and mail out, so be sure they look perfect. If so, click continue to place your job into the shopping cart. Once paid for, we'll get to work on it!