4 Custom Mail Services That Boost Small Business Productivity

Small businesses operate on razor-thin profit margins, which means owners often look for ways to increase sales while decreasing costs. One of the most effective ways to increase profit margins involves implementing strategies to boost productivity. Getting more out of less is one of the greatest benefits of custom mail services​

Boosting productivity helps small businesses optimize the use of limited resources, which increases profit margins. It also leads to higher customer satisfaction rates that translate into developing a larger base of repeat customers. Since small business owners typically work long hours, a more productive small business helps owners achieve a better balance between work and personal life. Perhaps the greatest benefit of boosting small business productivity concerns discovering innovations that help grow sales.

Let’s take a quick look at four custom mail services that boost small business productivity.

Digital Printing

Digital printing is highly regarded for helping small businesses save money on mailing costs. However, converting your mail operation to all digital printing also boosts productivity. You can meet the demand for large batch orders, such as end-of-year mailings, in much less time. Another large batch order that benefits from the speed of digital printing systems is business cards, which present a positive first impression to prospective customers, as well as act as a practical way for current customers to contact a small business to address an urgent matter.

Another benefit of digital printing is the process produces a much higher quality product, whether the product is a batch of custom-made flyers, brochures, or invitations.

Bulk Mailing

Bulk mailing represents a type of custom mailing service that is ideal for boosting productivity. You send out more letters, flyers, brochures, postcards, and business cards in bulk to receive a lower rate per each piece of correspondence. Signing up for a bulk mail rate plan saves a small business a substantial amount of money, which allows owners to divert financial resources to other projects.

To keep the cost of bulk mailing as low as possible, a small business owner must accurately target the right recipients.

Create Accurate Addresses Lists

Despite a lower rate per item, a bulk mailing campaign still puts a dent in a small business budget because of the high cost of postage. This means small businesses should take advantage of a custom mailing service such as Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS), which recognizes and then corrects any incorrect addresses. Merge or purge software is another type of custom mailing service that boosts small business productivity because the system automatically identifies multiple names for the same person. For example, a recipient named Richard also might receive mail under the name Rick.

NCOA

Several studies indicate that more than 20 percent of Americans move at least one time a year. Small businesses that need to remain in touch with mobile customers cannot afford to send mail to an address a customer no longer calls home. The solution to sending mail to customers who have moved is called the National Change of Address (NCOA) processing service. NCOA updates weekly to identify families, businesses, and individuals that have changed addresses, whether the new addresses are located five blocks away or across the country.

Can I Use Custom Mail Services to Handle Monthly Bulk Mailings?

Bulk mailings represent an effective way for your organization to save money in mailing costs, while still reaching your target audience. The question is not whether you should get the most out of your business marketing budget through bulk mailings. Instead, the question is should your organization do-it-yourself or outsource bulk mailings to a business that specializes in providing custom mailing services?

At first glance, the answer to the question is to handle bulk mailing projects in-house to save even more money. However, first glances are not always the best indicators for making the right business decisions. Although your organization can save money by doing bulk mailings in-house, the potential to make one or more mistakes can quickly cost you more money than if you outsource a bulk mailing project.

What is Bulk Mailing?

Bulk mailing represents an affordable mailing system that leverages the power of sending out hundreds of letters, flyers, brochures, postcards, and business cards to receive lower per-item rates. Taking advantage of bulk mailing rates can save your organization a considerable amount of money that you can allocate to other types of marketing initiatives.

To keep bulk mailing rates as low as possible, your organization must accurately target the receivers of your correspondence. As with irrelevant emails that get immediately sent to the trash bin, printed marketing correspondence sent to the wrong target audience ends up in a physical trash can. The key is to update your mailing lists constantly, which is one of four custom mailing services that benefit your bulk mailing program.

What Are the Four Most Popular Custom Mailing Services for Bulk Mailings?

Using one or more of the following custom mail services can enhance the performance of your bulk mailing campaigns.

Obtain Correct Addresses

Even if you run bulk mailing campaigns, your organization still has to pay for postage. What is the most influential factor that drives up the cost of postage for bulk mailings? The answer is sending correspondence to the wrong addresses. One of the most important custom mail services is called Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) which represents a software program that automatically corrects any incorrect addresses.

Digital Printing

Using a digital printing service lowers the production costs of correspondence by requiring fewer types of raw materials to send a finished product. Digital printing also is much more accurate, which lowers the amount of waste discarded because of printing errors. If your organization runs frequent bulk mailing campaigns, a digital printing service does a better job of helping you maintain pace with production requirements.

Eliminate Duplicate Addresses

Sending the same type of correspondence more than one time to the same address is another costly mistake committed during a bulk mailing campaign. A merge or purge duplicate address tool identifies multiple addresses for the same person or business. For example, churches often have multiple addresses that identify different departments. Another common mistake is sending the same type of mail to the same person who goes by two different names. For example, your organization has to send just one letter to a household where a Jim and a James are the same person.

Access to the National Change of Address Database
​Residents in the United States are a highly mobile group, with an estimated 20 percent of the population moving each year. How does your organization keep up with such a highly mobile base of mail recipients? The answer is to gain access to the National Change of Address (NCOA) database. NCOA updates every week to identify the individuals, families, and businesses that have moved across town or the United States.