With postage prices going up today, matm now sends all of its invoices via PDF – this means our invoices arrive faster, and are cheaper to send as we no longer incur costs for paper, printing, envelopes and postage. Below are the key facts and figures about the price increases from April 30th 2012:

• The price of a first-class stamp for a standard letter – 46p to 60p
• A second-class stamp for a standard letter – 36p to 50p
• A first-class stamp for a large letter weighing up to 100g – 75p to 90p
• A large letter sent second-class will cost 69p, rather than 58p
• Parcels, franked mail, recorded post, redirection services and PO Box use will also increase accordingly

But perhaps most importantly, we can now say we deliver our invoices in an environmentally friendly way – by eliminating paper, printing and freight, we have reduced our carbon footprint and save trees. We hope that other businesses can follow suit and switch to faster, greener invoicing too – the only down side is that bills arrive just that bit quicker, but still, we’re loving that!

Here’s an example of how a bit of technology that, a year ago, was hardly heard of, is now so mainstream that it’s being used to help support the villlage pub.

QR codes, which can be scanned using a mobile phone camera to bring up a link to a web page, are being used to boost rural pubs by promoting walks in the countryside.

The Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Partnership has created 12 circular walks that have pubs on each route – and is promoting them using QR codes on posters and beer mats…obviously.

With more and more emails being read via smart phones, it has never been more important to consider you mobile subscribers.

matm’s bespoke email/e-shot template, Coffeemail, now supports mobile browsing – allowing for more of your subscribers to enjoy your eshots just as you created them.

Below are examples of templates for a web based layout and a mobile layout:

Hit the ‘contact us’ button above with any questions!

We were sent this link to a short piece on search engine optimisation and pay per click and thought that it was worth passing on.

SEO beats PPC & social media for generating leads, new industry report says.

Interesting point that stood out to me – ’60 percent of respondents (to a survey) said they plan to increase their budget for social media marketing in 2012′

What do you think?