How Good Are Your Direct Mail Production Tools?

By Rick Powell
Originally published in the February 2009 issue of AdVents,
The newsletter of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington

You gotta hand it to MacGyver. The resourceful secret agent from the hit ‘80s television series could get out of any bind with the help of a Swiss Army Knife and a roll of duct tape.

While I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, I haven’t come across many situations in direct mail production where a Swiss Army Knife and duct tape were helpful. But, like MacGyver, I never underestimate the value of a good tool. Our business is too fast paced, too complex and too error-prone to rely on human skill and intuition alone. At each step of the direct mail production process, trusted tools can make the difference between a smoothly executed campaign and a big expensive “oops.”

Whether you partner with a production management firm or handle your direct mail production in house, here are some areas within the production process where we’ve found a good tool can earn its weight in gold.

Bidding & Procurement. With the escalating cost of materials and services, competitive bidding is critical for making sure the price of each package component is the best it can be. At the same time, a competitive bidding process is only effective if it generates meaningful bids that accurately match job requirements to supplier capabilities. A good bid and procurement system can help automate this process while ensuring the quality of incoming bids. More sophisticated versions can even maintain pricing history. This data can be used for a variety of purposes including preparing budgets and examining trends.

Workflow Management. With literally scores of distinct steps in the direct mail production process (we gave up trying to count them!), you’re lost before you’ve even started if you don’t have a way to track the progress of a campaign from initiation to completion. A good workflow management tool will enable you to define each individual step in the process, assign resources, set deadlines, and track the completion of each step. When updated and published regularly, this tool can help keep everyone up-to-date on the project’s status and can be a gentle reminder when things slip. With an accurate and reliable workflow management system, production managers can also model “what if” scenarios and continuously improve the process. Ideally, the bidding and procurement data is maintained within the workflow management tool. That will allow you to more efficiently control costs if (or should I say when) the specifications change along the way.

Weight Management. We’re not talking about portion control around the holidays. We’re talking about that pesky fraction of an ounce that can push your package from one postage price band to the next. This is not the kind of mistake you want to discover as your three million piece mailing is being held by the Post Office. Instead, consider using specialized weight management calculation tools that tell you precisely what the final weight of a package will be before your artwork delivers to the printer.

Postal Delivery Optimization. It’s called “snail mail” for a reason. The fact is, it takes the USPS a lot of steps—six, on average—to get a package from Point A to Point B (and you’re paying for each of those steps). What if you could cut two or three of these steps—and save money in the process? For example, commingling allows your smaller mailings to share in volume discounts, and drop shipping directly to USPS Sectional Centers can result in rate reductions too. Quality postal logistics software can help you analyze these delivery options and provide private sector alternatives that could significantly reduce your postage costs.

Mail Delivery Tracking. What do you do when a hurricane destroys a truck carrying your mailing (a true story)? Better yet, how would you know? With mail tracking software, you would know exactly which packages were in jeopardy and take immediate steps to replace them. And even under normal circumstances, delivery-tracking capabilities can give you the kind of metrics to know precisely when your mail will land in the recipient’s mailbox. With today’s emphasis on integrated marketing, timing truly is everything!

If your direct mail production process is lacking one or more of these tools, you may be missing out on opportunities to make your mail program more efficient and cost effective. Or worse, without critical safeguards throughout the production process, you may be exposing your program to the risk of expensive but avoidable errors.

Consider assessing your production process to identify critical risk areas that could be improved with the help of the right tool. And all you MacGyver fans out there, if you happen to know a way that a Swiss Army Knife and some duct tape can improve the direct mail production process, please let me know!

Rick Powell is President and CEO of The Production Management Group, Ltd. (PMG), a leading direct mail and e-marketing solutions provider serving the direct mail production needs of nonprofits and the agencies that serve them. JobRunner and MailTracker are just a few of the innovative management tools PMG has developed to ensure exceptional mail campaign production and delivery for clients. Contact Rick at rick@pmgdirect.net.