Mailing Efficiencies: How to Increase Your Profitability & Productivity with Workflow Optimization

Companies can implement several effective strategies to reduce mailing costs and streamline processes. This article overviews solutions that integrate seamlessly into existing workflows to drive higher profitability and productivity.

Validate Addresses Before Mailing

One of the most impactful steps is to validate addresses before printing and mailing pieces. Integrating address verification software eliminates costs from undeliverable mail and helps ensure each piece reaches the intended recipient. Invalid addresses can be automatically filtered out for further verification before processing.

Remove Unwanted Mail Pieces

Maintaining address lists and setting business rules to suppress particular recipients from receiving mail reduces volumes and postal expenditures. This saves money sending mail to outdated, irrelevant, or suppressed contacts.

Household Mail Pieces

Householding, or collating output destined for the same recipient into one mail piece, reduces print and postage costs. Solutions are available to household documents from disparate sources combined into one output file before production.

Maximize Mail Piece Content

Strategically maximizing content allows companies to qualify for preferred postal rates. This can be done by adding pages to take advantage of maximum page counts for certain classes of mail or by duplexing documents. Conversely, less critical pages can be removed and replaced with references to view full content online, resulting in thinner, cheaper mail.

Segment Output

Segmenting output files enables specialized processing. Examples include creating files for foreign addresses, high-value customers, and printer compatibility. Segmentation also facilitates sending mail originating from multiple sites from the location closest to the delivery point to accelerate recipient response times.

Introduce Barcodes

Barcodes on documents can be leveraged throughout the production workflow for tracking and integrity. Scanning barcodes verifies record accuracy to prevent mismatched documents from erroneously going into recipient envelopes. Barcodes also facilitate monitoring documents through upstream and downstream processes.

Update Control Marks Dynamically

Solutions can dynamically switch and update control marks for print finishing equipment so files can flow through whichever devices are most readily available. This prevents bottlenecks and improves throughput.

Incorporate Transpromotional Content

Transactional documents present a unique opportunity to expose recipients to targeted promotional messaging and graphics. Introducing variable data marketing content and augmented reality to statements and bills can improve customer engagement while qualifying for postal incentives.

Benefits Beyond Cost Savings

While most mailing optimization strategies directly reduce costs through postage discounts and eliminating waste, some benefits are indirect, such as improving customer satisfaction. Creating mail pieces with corporate branding and transpromo content and delivering them faster fosters loyalty. Consolidating documents also reduces environmental impact for sustainability-focused organizations.

These capabilities are available through workflow solutions that require no changes to composition systems, data streams, printers, or finishing equipment. Companies can quickly realize significant savings and efficiencies by working within existing environments while optimizing output processes. This improves profitability, productivity, and customer experiences.