Can Tri-Win Save You Money on Your Mailings?

If you are looking to improve your ROI on your direct mail piece (and who isn’t?), it is important to get the lowest costs possible.  Tri-Win employees work hard to allow our customers the best printing prices and postage discounts.  If you’ve sent a lot of
direct mail, you already know that postage expenses are usually the most costly
portion of a direct mail campaign.  Our staff has experience in a variety of mailing products and we know what it takes to obtain postage rate incentives.

There is a lot to be said about the different “co” programs that are available now from the United States Postal Service – commingle, comailing and copalletize.  All are ways to save money on postage, and when combined can offer significant discounts on mailings.

When we first started working with BAI and their Midwestern client they were mailing
350,000 to 400,000 pieces per month of nonprofit letter size mail destined for
areas throughout the United States. Realizing that much of their mail was not
receiving any kind of entry discount when dropping it locally, we suggested the
process of copalletization.  If you are unfamiliar with the term – let’s look
at what copalletization can offer.  In copalletizing, mail trays that have been addressed and sorted are combined on the same pallet with trays from multiple customers going to the same destinations.  These full pallets are then entered in the USPS’s National Distribution Center (NDC) nationwide or into one of the Sectional Center Facilities (SCF).  The SCF is a USPS processing and distribution center that serves a designated geographical area defined by the first 3 digits in a zip code.

At first BAI was hesitant as they did not want their client’s mail pieces to
experience any longer delivery time. We provided them with a study showing the
rate at which a 12 million piece sampling of mail was delivered using the copal
process. This study showed delivery times on par with what they were currently
experiencing mailing from Dallas. The added perk for their client was that
after all logistics costs were taken into account there was an average savings of
$2,500 per month in postage.

By entering the mail at a NDC or SCF, our customers benefit from:

  • Greater postal discounts
  • Better tracking abilities
  • Faster shipping as copalletized mail enters the USPS closer to the destination

Tri-Win saved BAI and their client over $30,000 in 2011.  Can we save you money on your
mailing campaigns?  We are postage professionals at Tri-Win and will work with you to ensure your piece meets all USPS regulations and that you receive the best postage rates in the direct mail industry.  We can also help you design your piece and provide you with an accurate mailing list. Give us a call at (866) 809-8998 and let us show you how to save money on your next direct mail campaign.

Get a Discount on Your Direct Mailings this Summer

The US Postal Service is offering a two percent discount on mailings during the months of July and August.  In order to qualify for the discount, the mail piece must contain a QR code.  QR or Quick Response codes are two dimensional barcodes that drive users from printed material to the web via a smartphone.  According to the US Post Office, “mobile technology is one of the fastest growing marketing sectors.  And when combined with marketing mailers, it can help businesses stay relevant and increase their profit.”  https://www.usps.com/mobile-barcode.htm

The discount applies to Standard Mail and First-Class Mail letters, flats and cards with a 2D barcode that can be read or scanned with a mobile device.   When scanned, the technology must activate a link directly to either a mobile-optimized Web page that allows the mail recipient to purchase a product or service or to a mobile-optimized and customized Web page uniquely tailored to the mail recipient and accessible by a personalized URL.

Pitney Bowes Announces Winners of 2011 Brilliant Communications Awards

STAMFORD, Conn. – Pitney Bowes Inc. today announced the winners of its first annual Brilliant Communications Awards. The awards recognize leading high-volume print and mail organizations that are finding new ways to streamline workflow, ensure accuracy, and market precisely to get the greatest value from their customer communications. The inaugural recipients of the awards were recognized at the Company’s annual Global Document Messaging Technologies Customer Summit, June 6-8, 2011.

“The winners of our Brilliant Communications Awards are innovators, early adopters and creative problem solvers who can point the way for others,” said Ramesh Ratan, president of Pitney Bowes Document Messaging Technologies. “They are helping to lead a customer communications evolution using solutions to help lower costs, enhance the value they provide to their customers, and make their organizations more successful.”

The winners of the 2011 Brilliant Communications Awards include:

“Powerful Communication Award” – Tri-Win Digital Print and Direct Mail, Dallas, TX, USA
Tri-Win Digital Print and Direct Mail, a direct mail house and digital print shop, won the Powerful Communication Award for improved productivity, efficiencies and quality. Tri-Win used FlowMaster RS Flex Inserting Systems with optional camera verification systems, and in-line inkjet printing station capabilities. The solutions helped Tri-Win increase the speed, and reliability of its envelope insertion process, and more importantly, increase its statement mailing customer base.

“Colorful Communication Award” – Emdeon, Toledo, OH, USA
Emdeon, a leading provider of healthcare revenue and payment cycle management and clinical information exchange solutions, won the Colorful Communication Award for migrating to full digital color White Paper Factory solutions. Emdeon used IntelliJet roll-fed printing systems; APS and MPS Advanced Productivity Series Inserting Systems; a FPS Split Drive Inserting System; and Pitney Bowes software to drive the printers and provide reports for tracking and management analysis. As a result, Emdeon can now print full-color, eye-catching patient statements quickly and easily in a single print run at full production speed. Emdeon also streamlined operations for greater efficiency, eliminated costs and storage space for millions of sheets of paper, increased print capacity to better handle volume spikes and future growth, and shortened mail delivery time to the consumer.

“Profitable Communication Award” – Logistic Mail Factory GmbH, Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany

Logistic Mail Factory, an alternative, private-run postal company in Bavaria, won the Profitable Communication Award for creating more relevant, precision marketing communications. Logistic Mail Factory used a VariSort Mixed Mail Sorter, Olympus II Flexible Tier Sorter, DI950 Inserting Systems, DM1000 Digital Mailing Systems, P/I OfficeMail, P/I Output Manager software with VIP centralized output management, and P/I Enhancement Manager software with VDE centralized output management. The solutions enabled Logistic Mail Factory to receive and register letters from companies electronically instead of physically, as well as automatically print and finish mailpieces and bill customers for services. Each mailpiece is assigned a tracking number and is enriched with final sorting criteria based on a software database. As a result, this simplified and optimized the physical sorting process. Also, Logistic Mail Factory increased productivity, accuracy and efficiency; and decreased production costs by fully automated scanning and sorting.

“Innovators Choice Award” – PSC Info Group, Oaks, PA, USA
PSC Info Group, a national provider of innovative, technology-enabled solutions and proven revenue acceleration tools to streamline the collection of consumer payments, won the award for the most innovative solution. PSC Info Group accepts data from various clients, most of which are collections or medical in nature. PSC Info Group uses P/I Output Manager software with VDE centralized output management and P/I Wizard software along side their document creation software, and developed a way to pass information to the P/I products from the document creation software by embedding them in the document files themselves. PSC Info Group is now able to group significantly more jobs together for increased efficiency. In addition, the solutions have helped PSC Info Group simplify the process of linking Intelligent Mail barcodes with stored return data, resulting in reduced server overhead.

Winners of the Powerful Communication Award, Colorful Communication Award and Profitable Communication Award received a $25,000 credit toward future solutions purchases, as well as travel accommodations and transportation to the Customer Summit. The winner of the Innovators Choice Award received a prize package including an iPad with 16GB Wi-Fi, as well as travel accommodations and transportation to the Customer Summit.

Pitney Bowes customers submitted entries for the Brilliant Communication Awards from March until May 2011. Applications included physical, digital or hybrid-mail. A panel of industry experts including Andy and Julie Plata, co-CEO’s of the OutputLinks Communications Group, and thought leaders from Pitney Bowes selected the winners of the Powerful Communication Award, Colorful Communication Award and the Profitable Communication Award. Industry peers viewed and voted for nominations for the “Innovators Choice Award” online.

For additional information on the Brilliant Communication Awards, please visit www.pbbrilliantawards.com

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Direct mail marketing sees 3.1 percent growth after three-year decline

By: Lindsey Graham

Small businesses may want to put more of their business marketing efforts into direct mail, as the medium has recently witnessed significant growth after spending several years on the decline. 

According to a report revealed by the Winterberry Group, direct mail advertising sales saw a 3.1 percent increase in 2010, compared to its 20 percent decline from the three years prior. This figure is expected to increase further next year to 5.8 percent, Medill Reports noted, a boost that experts attribute to a rebounding economy.

“As companies see the economy turning around, they tend to increase their spending on marketing, because so many of them have cut back their spending during the recession,” Bob Lieber, CEO of marketing strategy and services firm Original Thought told the source.

This news could be beneficial to the United States Postal Service, which has been fighting to regain growth and draw in new direct mail advertisers via beefed up marketing and advertising campaigns.

According to the source, the rise may be due to the fact that many consumers’ email inboxes are filled with an overwhelming number of messages. Due to this, many opt not to open them and instead choose to delete them. Therefore, it may be easier to target consumers with a piece of correspondence that they can hold in their hands and interact with directly.

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posted originally on www.amsterdamprinting.com

Small Business Tip: Use Direct Mail Marketing to your Advantage

With the high cost of advertising, small companies need to uncover a way to sell their items or services in the most economical way doable. Direct mail advertising is the perfect advertising strategy for tiny businesses since of its affordability and effectiveness. Corporate stationery can be reproduced at a really reasonable price through letterhead and envelope printing services.

The purpose of direct mail advertising is not limited to just promoting your enterprise this strategy can also be used for the following objectives:

Brand Recognition: Sending your own organization stationery is much better than employing generic postcards for your marketing copy. Personalized stationery strengthens your branding efforts. Your corporate stationery contains your brand name, logo, and company colors. These branding elements assist consumers remember who you are. Guarantee brand recognition by placing your logo in a prominent location on your envelopes and letterheads.

Customer Loyalty: Direct mail advertising is a more personal approach for communicating with your customers. This builds customer relationships and increases consumer loyalty. Adding a individual touch to advertising is the greatest way to show customers that you value their enterprise. Send them direct mail in the course of the holidays or to just simply thank them for their continued support.

New Consumers: Your organization need to be able to extend its services to a new pool of customers to allow it to grow and expand. You can do this by asking for referrals or exchanging mailing lists with other companies. Gaining new customers not only rewards your revenue, it also increases your visibility.

Newsletters: Maintain your customers up-to-date with your new merchandise or services, sales, or new store openings. Doing so allows consumers to participate in your company’s milestones or take advantage of your special provides.  Maintaining visibility helps minimize competition.    

Whether you are utilizing direct mail advertising for promotions, news updates, or special greetings, often maintain in mind that your message need to be straightforward, concise, and total. This way you can be certain that you are communicating effectively. Lastly, you ought to be careful in choosing the right printing company to print envelopes and letterheads for your marketing campaign to guarantee high-quality.

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Originally posted on txcsl.org

Four steps to follow when choosing a list

You can only go to the well so many times. Even the greatest campaign for the best product, with the most attractive offer and creative collateral, will fall flat if you’re not reaching high quality, new business prospects. If you’re seeing a decrease in response and an increase in opt-outs, your lists are probably oversaturated. You know you need fresh ammunition. What should you do?

1. Identify suitable brokers. Find brokers who manage files that match your desired target audience in terms of company size, industry, geography, desired type of contact, job title, function and purchasing authority of influence. Obtain counts from your identified brokers to determine if their counts support the mass volume your b-to-b marketing program requires. Match rental options, including email, direct mail and phone, to your go-to-market strategy. Determine how the brokers’ lists are collected.

2. Test their lists. Tell the data list manager upfront that you intend to run competitive tests before agreeing to a long-term purchase agreement. Agree to terms, and then select three lists that match your criteria. Provide the broker with a list of the types of people you do not want in your target audience.

3. Measure results. Remember that even respondents who aren’t interested are valuable. If your list does contain the right people, you may just need to reach them in a different way or with a different business offer.

4. Select your vendor. Once you’ve aggregated the data, you’ll have a solid foundation for making your selection. Monitor your ongoing response rates to gauge how effectively the list company invests in continuously cleaning its files. If you see diminishing returns from your list purchase, I recommend 
repeating tests and your selection process annually.

From the June 01, 2011 Issue of Direct Marketing News

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USPS searches for more advertising mail

The US Postal Service literally guaranteed the effectiveness of integrating direct mail into marketing campaigns when it launched a postage-back assurance program in mid-May to attract the business of large marketers. The USPS is conducting the “Mail Works Guarantee” to convert large advertisers into direct mail marketers and to counter the large yearly drops it is seeing in First Class mail.

“Direct mail is the most effective and measurable way to get a message to consumers, and we know it won’t automatically go to a spam folder,” said Susan Plonkey, VP of sales at the USPS. “Of course, a direct mail piece is only as good as its offer and targeting.”

The USPS will use its experience to advise brands on how to effectively include mail in their marketing mix but will not assist with metrics or branding advice, she adds.

“We assume companies will already have very solid metrics in place to determine success. What we believe we can do is improve the performance of that campaign with direct mail. We also assume companies have determined the right brand message,” said Plonkey. “With our years of experience, and our vast amount of data on the effectiveness of direct mail and our knowledge of how to improve the read and response rate of direct mail, we believe we are uniquely positioned to help companies incorporate direct mail into their advertising mix.”

The USPS has declined to name the large brands that are participating in the program, but the program’s parameters say each must spend at least $25 million annually on advertising and mail between 500,000 and 1 million pieces of Standard or First Class mail yearly. The Postal Service will refund up to $250,000 in postage costs if their mail campaigns don’t meet agreed-upon expectations.

Industry experts say direct mail still adds a vital element to most campaigns, despite the fact that many brands have moved a significant amount of their spending to digital.

“In many cases, there’s only a 20% click rate with digital,” says Russell Kern, founder and president of The Kern Organization, a direct marketing agency. “What about the other 80%? Digital is faster and less expensive, but single-channel marketing isn’t effective for any brand. When you lose mail, you close a door.”

However, Jeff Hassemer, VP of product strategy for the data management services group at Experian, notes that the integration of marketing campaigns has hurt direct mail in recent years as brands have moved spending to other areas. For that reason, the initiative will likely not turn many major advertisers into direct mailers, he adds.

“They have not reduced volumes because direct mail on the whole was not working for them, they reduced mail volumes because they are achieving a greater return on investment from the combination of direct mail and additional marketing channels,” says Hassemer. “In the end, a company will maximize its marketing investment across all channels. Direct mail was king of this for quite some time, but marketers are now focused on maximizing budgets across all marketing channels based on return alone.”

Greening Your Mailing List

Can direct mail be green? It can be and the best place to start is by greening your mailing list.

Every year, U.S. businesses send billions of pieces of mail that are undeliverable as addressed (UAA). We help our customers maintain a cleaner list by using ZIP Code correction, address standardization, change-of-address services (NCOA) and duplication removal. Here are some steps you can take to fine-tune your lists:

  • Merge/purge mailing lists often to remove duplicate names/addresses.
  • Use clean lists (address standardization and NCOA) to prevent mailing to ”bad” addresses (UAA).
  • Provide frequent, clear opportunities for customers to opt-in and opt-out of your mailings.
  • Allow customers to specify their preferred method of contact.
  • Target mail efficiently using segmentation and modeling to select recipients.
  • Personalize your message to increase relevance and reduce waste.

This is only the first step in greening your direct mail – but it is a very important one. Following the first few steps will save you money (less printing and postage) and the last two can reduce waste (once your mail arrives at its destination it won’t be considered “junk”).

So get started with greening your list – and if you need assistance with preventing UAA mail, give us a call!

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Originally posted on EcoPrintMail.wordpress.com

Targeted mailing list 'the key to direct mail success'

Even with the rise of social media marketing, more conventional techniques like direct mail are unlikely to go away, but B2B data and business mailing lists could be vital to campaign success.

Speaking to Marketing Week, Annabel Venner, marketing director at niche business insurer Hiscox, described the varied mix of media the firm uses in its promotional activity.

When asked whether modern elements such as social marketing would ever replace traditional techniques like direct mail, Ms Venner argued that a variety of media was necessary.

“I cannot see direct mail going away, but you need to make sure that you are targeting the right people. This means data is massively important,” she told the journal.

Firms marketing their products and services to other companies may therefore be encouraged to use business mailing lists to ensure they are reaching the right prospects.

Earlier this week, Phil Kingsland, site director at knowthenet.org.uk, suggested that smaller firms do not need to become entirely digital to benefit from the internet.

He said that on and offline operations can coexist and support one another, perhaps through a mix of B2B email marketing and direct mail strategies.

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Originally posted on ThomasLocal.com

Tri-Win Digital Print & Direct Mail has purchased their fifth Kodak Digimaster Digital Production System to support their growing statement mailing customer base..

New technology provides increased productivity.

Tri-Win has always focused on giving customers top quality products, superior customer service, and lower prices. Since 2003 the Kodak Digimaster has been the monochromatic digital printing solution for the Dallas, TX based direct mail house and digital printer. When it came time for Tri-Win to increase their printing capabilities it made sense to purchase another quality Kodak product.

The Kodak Digimaster has a number of advantages over some of the other monochromatic digital cut-sheet presses. Their ability to use a larger variation of paper weight lets Tri-Win’s customers make printing decisions based on branding and quality instead of print restrictions. Superior image and half tone quality creates an easier to read statement for the mail recipients. In Tri-Win’s personal experience the Kodak Digimaster requires fewer repairs than some other cut sheet monochromatic presses. “The Digimaster is the best cut-sheet press available,” Russell Honeycutt, Director of Data and Print.

 

Currently Tri-Win prints and mails approximately 5 million statements each month for 10 different clients. Beginning in June, Tri-Win’s fifth Digimaster will be installed to support their growing business. Once that new press is installed Tri-Win will have five different models of Digimasters; a Digimaster 9150, E125, E150, EX138, and EX150

 

Investing in the future.

Tri-Win is always looking for opportunities to add value to their direct mail and digital printing services; monochromatic cut-sheet printing, single-pass inserting, QR Code generation, variable data printing, and data list maintenance, are just a few of the unique innovative services that Tri-Win provides to their growing clients.

Investing in smart technology provides opportunities for growth, no matter what state the economy is in, but being able to invest without borrowing money sets Tri-Win apart from most print and mail companies. Every piece of equipment that Tri-Win uses is owned outright. Every process in place is evaluated for efficiency. Tri-Win constantly looks for ways to do things faster, better, or cheaper without sacrificing the quality of the product, and the benefits of the new processes get passed on to their customers.

Superior customer service is the standard.

The constant search to enhance the quality of Tri-Win’s processes is just one way they separate themselves from the competition through service. Tri-Win has some of the latest technology in the direct mail industry, but they built their customer base by focusing on customer service. “It’s important to us to make the direct mail process as easy as it can be. We want you to know that you can give us your project and we will take care of the details. We can purchase your data list, design your mailer, print the pieces, and get everything in the mail. We can take care of all the details of your direct mail campaign so you can take care of the details of running your business”, Scott Swanner, Operations Manager.

Tri-Win’s dedication to efficiency and superior customer service allowed them to grow every year for 15 years. Now they boast nearly 500 clients and send out an average of 500,000 pieces of mail every day.  You don’t pay for unnecessary labor; you don’t pay for interest payments. When you work with Tri-Win you pay for the most efficient mail shop process available. With the addition of a new Kodak Digimaster their print shop is ready for new business.

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