Choosing the right Mailing House
Selecting the right mailing house depends greatly on what you want to mail. That said, there are a few important guidelines that you should look out for when choosing a good mailing house that will work for you. You’ll need a really good relationship with an account manager as this person will be running your campaign and talking to you a lot; make sure you’re not just a number / another customer. You’ll want competitive prices and flexibility, but most of all quality and reliability must come high up on the list.
Be sure that the mailing house you choose has the capacity to deal with your mailings. Are they used to dealing with the size and deadlines you have? Have they dealt with your competition before, if so what worked and what didn’t (cheeky I know but why not ask?). Basically make sure they can handle the job in hand!
Does your mailing house offer a complete service or do they outsource? If it’s the latter don’t worry, on the contrary it’s all about getting the best deal, service, product and value for money you can when it comes to digital or laser print, variable data print, inkjet ting addressing, poly-wrapping, envelope fulfilment, stationery supply, fulfilment and postage discounts?
Find a mailing house who partner with official posting suppliers. This is really important as Royal Mail will always do what’s known as the “final mile” when it comes to delivering the mail through the letterbox. Take note that an honest mailing house should be happy and able to offer you a better rate per unit when posting compared to Royal Mail rates. They should be part of the mailing house scheme which means they’ll be able gain / offer you preferential rate dependant volumes being posted.
Connections with “downstream access providers” are also an important consideration as they may be able offer an extensive network of postal options / postage discounts, especially if they can sort and post the mail using services such as Mailsort, Economy, Advertising post or Presstream. Using downstream access will gain price reductions on larger volumes when posting to UK, European and Rest of the world. That stated BE CAREFUL who that chosen provider is as there are some real horror stories of mailings not being delivered; why not ask who they are using, doing some research of your own on them?
An experienced mailing house will be happy to share past achievements and projects, they should also be able to provide testimonials and accreditation’s too. Check their website out, if they have one!? One of the most important tips I can give when choosing any supplier is to visit them at their workplace, if only to put your mind at rest that they’re not working from a back room or garage.
Follow these simple checks when choosing your mailing house and you won’t go wrong:
Contact – Make sure you have a good relationship with your account manager / mailing house, don’t be a number!!
Competitive pricing – Remember Price vs. Value
Capability – Gain reassurance they can handle your mailing how every big or small it may be
Reliability – Ask for testimonials from existing clients who are using their services
Synergy – choose a mailing house that is happy to promote you via other channels i.e. Twitter / Facebook / Networking.
I was once told that you’re only as good as your worst supplier, this stated make sure you CHOOSE WISELY!
This article was previously published here.