Do you send out a lot of promotional or informative mail to your clients and customers? If you don’t already do so, it may be time that you outsourced your direct mail campaigns to the capable hands of a mailing house. As there are many mailing houses operating in the country right now, you may find it difficult trying to decide between them.
How then do you tell a good mailing house from a not so good one? You need to better understand what they do and the services they provide. As you will see from the following post, it goes beyond simply sending out mail on your behalf.
What Actually Is a Mailing House?
It is an organisation that prepares and sends out direct mail on behalf of other organisations and companies on both a domestic and international basis. One of the key reasons why businesses use the services of a mailing house is to receive the benefit of low-cost mail and postage rates.
There is more to a mailing house than just simply sending mail out.
Common Services Provided by Mailing Houses
The term mailing house can be a little misleading and make a company of this kind sound like a one-trick pony. Mailing houses actually offer a wide selection of useful services, including:
Printing
That’s right, with most mailing houses or mailing agencies as they are often known, you can not only arrange for them to send out your direct mail, but they will also print it for you. They do this either by printing onsite using their own machines or outsourcing to a specially selected printing partner.
They normally offer a wide range of printing services including the option to print in different sizes, colours and have access to variable data printing technology to help personalise your direct mail. As well as printing your direct mail and transactional mail materials, they will normally offer all other general printing services too.
Fulfilment
Following on nicely from the above, a service that most mailing agencies offer is fulfilment. This ties in nicely with their printing services as it involves the process of taking all your printed materials and any packaging or stationary necessary and preparing it to be sent out.
Planning and Preparing Campaigns
As they are experienced and skilled in this area of business, a mailing house will often offer their time and resources to help with the planning and preparation of your various mailshots and direct mail campaigns. This will involve their expert opinion and advice on the kind of mail you need to use, and which routes are the best for that particular campaign.
As most mailing campaigns are full-on projects in their own right, many mailing houses will take full control of the management of the campaign. You will even have your own account manager assigned with whom you can liaise with to discuss and monitor timescales, problems and the cost.
Handling Direct Mail and Transactional Mail
Of course, the main service offered by any mailing house is posting out your mail. Two of the most common kinds of mail they will handle on your behalf are direct mail and transactional mail.
Direct mail relates promotional and informational mail sent out to encourage new customers and clients to try your business and could involve anything from special offers to details of a new product or service. Transactional mail is post that is sent out as part of a transaction. This would be anything from statements and invoices to renewal notices and updates to accounts.
Using these services can warrant your business more time and convenience – all at an affordable cost.
Got questions about outsourcing your mailing? Or want a quote on your next mailer?
Use the contact form below to get in touch, or give us a call on 020 8492 5858.