How Printers Can Streamline Mailing Operations

Streamlined mailing processes can unlock improved efficiency and cost reductions for print service providers and in-plant print operations. Enhancing these processes can drive increased productivity, shorten turnaround times, and elevate customer satisfaction. 

For print operations, the journey toward optimizing mailing processes involves focusing on aspects such as quality control, postage rates, and personalized direct mail. Emphasizing efficiency can lead to substantial benefits.

Integrated mailing operations strengthens the operational workflow. Applying data analytics for targeted mailing campaigns and automating workflow processes decreases manual interventions, resulting in a smoother operation. A thorough understanding of postal issues, combined with strategic use of software and hardware, can revolutionize the way print service providers and in-plant operations handle their mailing tasks. Updating the mailing operation can convert a dreaded chore into a customer satisfaction strategy and a new revenue source.

Streamlining Workflow: From Print to Mail

Efficiency stands at the core of successful print and mailing operations. Automation reduces manual errors and helps in optimizing processes for increased productivity. By integrating mailing operations with other print services, operations achieve seamless coordination, enhancing the overall workflow. With data analytics, print providers gain insights into targeted mailing campaigns, ensuring that communications reach the right audiences. This targeted approach increases response rates and strengthens customer satisfaction. 

High-speed mail production equipment plays an essential role in accelerating the mailing process. By leveraging advanced technology, print service providers reduce turnaround times, delivering faster results. Today’s hardware and software solutions offer robust quality control mechanisms that cut costs related to mailing errors. Additionally, these solutions manage personalized direct mail efficiently, allowing for customized marketing strategies that resonate on a personal level with recipients.

Modern mail insertion equipment often comes installed with automated set-up functionality. This allows print companies to hire operators that don't have the years of experience that used to be necessary to adjust, maintain, and run the older mailing equipment. 

Incorporating automated workflow processes further enhances operational efficiency by reducing manual interventions. This strategic approach reduces human error, ensuring a streamlined process from print to mail delivery. File-based processing and quality control cameras ensure mailpieces are assembled correctly and the inserting platforms log the successful completion of inserting operations on a mailpiece level.

Postal Knowledge

Understanding USPS regulations and taking advantage of postage rate discounts can offer abundant cost savings. USPS offers postage promotions, which businesses can leverage to decrease expenses for their clients. Additionally, postal optimization strategies, such as address management, envelope optimization, and presorting, reduce mailing costs while maintaining communication quality. 

Those involved in managing mailing operations benefit from staying informed about postal innovations. Strategic techniques, including commingling discounts and intelligent mail barcodes, enable organizations to optimize mailing practices. This integration of technology and process enhancements ultimately reduces postal rates for customers, enhancing overall satisfaction. 

For print service providers in need of some postal education, information and support are readily available. Many inserting equipment vendors and postal software companies offer training and support to help companies understand the postal rules. They help customers learn how to produce mail that meets USPS mailing requirements and saves money. The USPS offers training, certification, and assistance to business mailers through local resources and the annual National Postal Forum. Several online and printed publications publish informative articles about postal matters to help mailers keep up with trends, best practices, and events.

Best Practices for Improving Mailing Efficiency

Print service providers can improve their mailing efficiency by implementing several best practices: 

• Optimize address data: Maintain accurate and up-to-date mailing lists by regularly verifying addresses, removing duplicates, and using address verification tools. This reduces returned mail and ensures messages reach intended recipients, resulting in better campaign ROI for your clients.
• Presort the mail: Use CASS-certified software to process mailing files, organize mail by ZIP Code, apply Intelligent Mail Barcodes (IMb), and prepare mailing reports.
• Invest in advanced printing technologies: Use high-speed digital printers to handle large volumes of personalized documents efficiently without compromising quality.
• Automate the mailing process: Purchase software and hardware solutions that automate tasks, such as sorting, collating, enveloping, and addressing. This reduces labor costs and minimizes errors.
• Implement tracking and reporting: Use mail tracking services to monitor shipments and analyze key metrics like delivery times and response rates via the USPS Informed Visibility programs and trackable QR codes or pURLs.
• Choose appropriate packaging: Select the right size and weight of packaging to minimize postage, material costs, and production expenses while ensuring safe delivery. Investigate opportunities to convert flats to letters or switch from letters to postcards or self-mailers.
• Plan strategically: Schedule mailing jobs to avoid peak seasons and group similar mail items for batch processing.

Integrating Mailing Operations with Print Production

• Integrating a mailing operation into a print production workflow involves several key steps:
• Invest in production management software: Install comprehensive software that manages the entire print-to-mail process, from job scheduling to resource allocation and workflow tracking. These are available from several vendors, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Check with Gimbel & Associates for guidance on the best fit.
• Automate pre-production tasks: Set up automation for critical pre-production tasks such as color separations and proofing, which can reduce the manual workload.
• Standardize procedures: Establish standard operating procedures for each production stage to ensure consistency and minimize errors.
• Integrate systems: Connect print production with other essential systems like Management Information Systems (MIS) and digital storefronts to streamline order processing.
• Use barcode and tracking systems: Add integrity to documents by implementing barcode systems that enable tracking throughout the print and mail process.
• Consolidate print jobs: Merge smaller print jobs and standardize inputs to eliminate manual changeovers while printing and inserting. Where applicable, suggest clients allow you to combine multiple mailings to the same household into a single mailpiece (householding).
• Adopt a white paper factory approach: Use digital variable print to combine data, content, personalization, and color in a single workflow, eliminating pre-print inventory costs and manual processes.
• Instigate centralized configuration management: Use software that aligns business requirements, data, and existing infrastructure while managing delivery preferences and Service Level Agreements.
• Ensure audit trail systems: Implement tools that supply a complete audit trail throughout the print and mail process.

Customer satisfaction improves because of timely and accurate deliveries. Integrated operations foster better data utilization, making targeted communication more effective and engaging. This strategic alignment strengthens relationships with clients and opens avenues for new business opportunities by offering a comprehensive service package.

Flexible Integrated operations handle fluctuations in print and mail volume, allowing providers to scale their services up or down based on client needs. Plus, advanced mailing systems often include better tracking and reporting features, ensuring higher accuracy and compliance with postal regulations, and enhanced communications with clients about the status of their campaigns.

By streamlining print and mail processes, print service providers can allocate more resources to developing their core business functions and strategic initiatives. Simultaneously, they improve customer retention, increase opportunities for account expansion, and generate revenue from postal and mailing related services.