Let’s say you have a bunch of volunteers or interns that can process your mailing. A large chunk of the costs would be saved by utilizing this free labor, or will it?
Having volunteers and interns can really help out with your company’s daily chores and save you money as well but should you allocate all projects to them? Let’s break down one scenario.
You have a mailer that needs to be folded and wafer sealed. The addresses, after printing them on labels, will need to be affixed. Then, apply the postage, sort, bundle and tray, fill out all required postal documentation and deliver the mailing to the Post Office.
As many who have tried this will attest, this can be a daunting task, sometimes adding stress and confusion to the work environment for days. In this scenario many supplies will be needed such as computer labels, rubber bands, wafer seals and all the required postal supplies ie. endorsement stickers, trays and sleeves. The database that will be used must conform to the new postal C.A.S.S. Certification and MOVE Update rules and the company must, in most cases, purchase a postage permit from the Post Office. Once all this is done and the mailing finally completed, postal docs must be filled out to be submitted along with the mailing reflecting the postage and would most likely not be automation compatible since many in-house operations do not have adequate barcoding capabilities. Under this scenario the labor would be free but the postage, one of the highest costs, would be higher. At just an average 4 cents per piece the difference on a 5000 piece mailing would result in a $200.00 increase in the postage!
With state of the art machinery and technology a mailing company can not only process this mailing in hours instead of days but can take advantage of all the postal discounts available. Many times a mail house can save your company so much in postage that the difference more than pays for their labor costs therefore, just as with volunteers and interns, your labor costs are “free”. The huge difference is in the time frame and deliverability of an automation compatible mailing with no stress and confusion at your workplace.
When considering the ever changing postal rules, workplace stress and confusion, your marketing efforts deliverability, the possible loss in postage and or non-qualifying mail requirement penalties, putting an important and huge task such as this in the hands of an experienced and capable professional makes sense. Especially when the overall costs are considered.
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