Mailing companies explained
What does a mailing company do exactly? In summary a mailing company can do as little or as much of a mailing as you want them to. From processing data to despatch and everything in between. Reduced cost postage is a great benfit. They can remove duplicate records from data plus many other data processes including removing returns from each mailing. Don't have room for all those pallets of brochures? The mailing house will even look after this for you.
So from a host of printing and data solutions to just a few hundred letters being mailed, that's perfectly fine, the mailing house will be pleased to help you with as much or as little as you need.
Different types of mailing company.
There are many mailing houses in the UK but which one will suit you best? There is little point sending a 5,000 mailing to a company that specialises in million runs. Similarly there are mailing organisations that only deal with certain aspects of mailing i.e. polythene or envelopes. Some companies have accreditations QMP, Royal Mail and ISO, and some do not.
Small to medium size mailing houses
These offer a small selection of hand work services and a limited range of machinery. All fine if your mailings are very small (3000 or less). Their data processing capabilities may be limited to using Excel to carry out database work and they may not be able to write code to fix glitches in your data.
Be careful here many use home workers to fill envelopes at a cheap price and your mail risks damage in between the school runs. There could also be consequences when the home workers children get their sticky jam sandwich all over your mail. They can also short change the mailing house by disposing of some of the mail to get their wages up.
Full service mailing houses
These will have all mailing services except perhaps continuous solutions (letterheads on reels etc). I would suggest that for anyone mailing less than 150,000 items this is an ideal choice, even if it's only 1000 items. They should have:
- More than one person in any one role, essential to get your mailing out on time.
- Solutions should you decide that you want to change your pack type from envelope to polythene.
- Data processing will be carried out by skilled staff (this will be their main role) and use specifically designed software and programmes for the job.
- Have a good knowledge of UK domestic and International overseas products.
- Able to offer you a storage and Fulfillment solution with returns handling.
The big league
Where a mailing is 250,000 items plus you may need the help of a specialist company. You will need to weed your way through the different types of mailing suppliers. Specialist services could include 1+ million packs per day, continuous laser printing etc. Typical clients could be like Dell the computer manufacturer (4million catalogues mailed) and Sky TV (7 million a month). It is unlikely that these companies will want small 20-30,000 mailings and their set up costs are likely to be high as the equipment used is expensive.
