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.

With a little bit of help from Direct Mail Beginning to End –Production and a lot of coordination you, your printer, and your designer have created a direct mail piece that is creative direct and won’t make you choose between printing it or making your car payment. Now it’s time to tackle the other major cost of creating your direct mail campaign, postage. Depending on the mailer either your printing or your postage could be your primary cost, and every creative decision you made will affect your postage now.

The size of the piece, the weight, if it folds, how many tabs need to hold the folds in place, if there is an envelope, and how the address is oriented relating to the shape of the mailer are all factors that will affect how much it costs to mail your campaign.  There is no way to begin to scratch the surface of everything you need to know about navigating postal regulations in a blog post, and I am not going to try. The Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) published by the post office is over 1,000 pages. It covers everything you need to know from how the size of your mailer dictates the postal class it will mail in, to the permitted saturation of colors used for printing the background of your address block. While the post office has been kind enough to post it online (note the shiny blue link text) there are so many rules with the mail the only way to be sure you are getting the best rate, short of reading it from cover to cover three times, is to work with a direct mail house. Get an expert (Remember last week I told you I would use that phrase again!)

Lots of printers these days are doubling as mail houses trying to offer a convenient one stop location for direct mail needs. There is nothing wrong with an all in one print house and mail house. It’s convenient, and can save time and money by eliminating the need to ship your printed stock to another location, but be sure they truly understand the mail regulations. I know of one case where a restaurant chain was mailing 2,500 5 3/4” x 11 5/8 mailers a week through a printer who was moonlighting as a mail house. The printer was simply trying to offer a convenience to the restaurant and make a little extra money on the side so it sounds like a good deal, but all postage is NOT the same. After about six months the restaurant chain was approached by sales rep for a mail house who told them that if they changed the size of the mailer to 5 3/4 “ x 11 ½” they would save 0.13 per mailer. Making that change took less than 5 minutes to implement, had no effect on the cost of printing, and no customer noticed the difference saving the restaurant $325.00 a week. The restaurant switched mail houses, and started looking for a new printer.  I don’t know if the designer picked the size of the mailer, or if the printer suggested the size. I do know that no one looked at the specifics of presorted first class letters and presorted first class flats until the direct mail expert talked to the restaurant.

The best intentions can backfire when someone gets involved who doesn’t know what they are doing.  A mail house should know direct mail, and a print shop should know printing. Places that do both printing and mailing should know both printing and mailing.  The designer, the printer, and the mail house should be able to communicate with each to solve problems in the creation process and reduce cost. As the business you might need to be the intermediary unless you find a direct mail company that offers design, print, and mailing as a package, and (I’m going to say it again…) has an expert in each field.

This is the last post in the Direct Mail Beginning to End Series, but it is far from my last post. If you have questions, and you probably do since this series was designed to be an overview of the direct mail process, post them in the comments and I will answer them or I might just write a whole new post based on your questions!

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