Business Shipping and Mailing Services | Pitney Bowes
4 ways mid-size providers drive production print growth
The future of physical mail providers lies in driving growth and competing in four key ways: operations, communications, compliance and engagement.
Living under the shadow of their larger competitors, mid-size print and mail service providers have to face all of the same industry pressures – like upgrading solutions, improving accuracy, maximising investments -- but with fewer resources. It’s a difficult, daunting proposition.
Fortunately, it doesn’t take a massive budget to do it right… if you have a good partner. The right technology partner can act as your subject matter expert, providing the insight and solutions you need to stay ahead and succeed.
The key philosophy is “success by design.” If you’re investing in print and mail solutions that are designed specifically for your needs, it’s easier to scale and compete. Purpose-built mail operations can help you deliver these four key capabilities:
01. Operational excellence
Growth isn’t just about boosting revenue. It’s also important to decrease expenses so that you can grow your margins and improve your competitive position. Take advantage of a simple way to cut expenses: Improve the performance and reliability of your print and mail operation.
Modern, modular presort systems, for example, eat up less of your expensive floor space compared to legacy systems. Similarly, modern inserting systems can handle complex mail processing, which limits costly mail processing errors that lead to time-consuming reconciling and reprocessing. You can find these types of savings all throughout your mail centre, enabling you to run a leaner, smarter, more efficient operation than your larger competitors.
02. Higher-value communications
Your customers want to launch impactful direct mail campaigns. It’s now easier than ever to deliver that impact. Colour makes all the difference.
Research shows that 69 percent of consumers are more likely to open an envelope featuring colour text and graphics compared to a plain mailpiece. Printing technology has improved to the point where you can achieve a better return on investment printing in full colour compared to black and white. The study found full-colour envelopes that cost $1.15 per piece returned $1.59 for the investment, while black and white envelopes that cost $1.40 deliver an ROI of 75 cents.
This technology is within reach to any mid-size print and mail provider, and it can improve your ability to compete with bigger industry players.
03. Industry-leading Compliance
Compliance is a risk to your bottom line and growth, especially if you’re serving clients in highly regulated industries. Try explaining to a banking client why a customer’s statement ended up in the wrong envelope and was mailed to the wrong address. That’s a potentially costly violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
That’s why it’s important to deliver industry-leading print and mail compliance, from printing to inserting to sorting. The right printing system includes features like duplex verification, which prevents out-of-sequence page printing. A modern inserting system, meanwhile, can create a traceability record to monitor every mailpiece through its lifecycle, helping you achieve accuracy and integrity.
04. Omnichannel Customer Engagement
Digital is not only a big engagement opportunity for your customers. It’s also a smart way for you to differentiate and offer powerful new omnichannel engagement solutions.
For example, when your clients are reaching their customers through digital channels, support their efforts by integrating customer data into print communications. The result is a richer omnichannel campaign, in which the end-customer’s digital engagements on mobile or social are followed up with highly relevant and targeted print engagements that can drive campaign response rates higher.
Keep in mind: Print remains a huge driver of response, delivering rates 30 times higher than email. By providing omnichannel engagement, you’ll be able to help your customers take advantage of each channel’s benefits.
To compete and achieve success, mid-size print and mail providers need purpose-built solutions. Learn more about how to keep your mail moving with outstanding flexibility and efficiency.