How Digital Distribution and Conversion Can Lower Your Mail Volumes
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How much is your company currently spending on sending out mail? How much time is it investing in this process? Do you ever wonder if going with a digital distribution plan is the better way?
By converting your physical mailers into digital versions, you can realize a number of benefits you simply won’t enjoy if you continue to do things the traditional way.
6 Reasons to Go With Digital Distribution
Although your company may always need to send some amount of physical mail, it would be wise to consider the benefits of progressing to a greater amount of digital distribution.
1. Less Overhead
One of the most obvious benefits of switching from snail mail to digital distribution is that the change is going to save you a lot of money. Take a look at your company’s current spending and see how much of your budget covers just postage. As you probably know, the U.S. Postal Service’s rates do go up, so you can expect that investment to grow, as well.
Of course, that’s only the beginning. There are all the other materials to consider on top of that. You need no shortage of envelopes. Depending on what your strategy involves, you may also spend a significant amount on different colors of ink and types of paper. That overhead alone is a big enough problem, but there’s also the unpredictability of it.
It can be difficult to budget for your mailing needs. As we just touched on, the rates for postage can increase. The number you need from one month to the next can fluctuate, too. Yet, somehow, you need to budget for all of this.
2. Time Savings
The other obvious advantage of switching to digital distribution is how much time it will save you. At the moment, the amount of time your mail team needs to regularly spend on getting out mailers and invoices is probably substantial.
What about a message you just discovered you needed to get out today? With email, it couldn’t be easier. Write this new message and hit “send.” With traditional mail, you could be looking at approving overtime.
3. Powerful Analytics
The power of email analytics cannot be underestimated. It can tell you all kinds of things about your audience. Here are some common examples:
- Was the message opened?
- Did the recipient click on the link?
- When’s the best time to send messages so they get opened?
- What format do recipients prefer?
There are countless other examples. Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish with your email, you’ll have a number of possibilities for measuring your success. However, let’s just take a look at the first one, as it’s incredibly helpful all on its own.
When you send a message via traditional mail, you have no idea if someone actually opens it or not. As such, you have no way of knowing if the message you sent was successful or not. Therefore, you have no idea if there’s room for improvement or not. You could be spending a small fortune on recipients who have no intention of opening another message from you ever again. Maybe they’re no longer in your market.
Likewise, you could be repeatedly contacting the same recipients with messaging that just doesn’t work. Email analytics will shed enough light on these topics that you’ll know exactly how to react. Traditional mail will not.
4. Provide Timely Responses
Clients who elect to receive invoices and statement electronically will typically also pay those bills electronically when they receive them, versus hard copy mail which is delivered days later, and paid when the client gets around to it. This improves cash flow and Days Sales Outstanding (DSO). If you are business owner or CFO, you know the importance of decreasing DSO
Traditional mailers also aren’t great for eliciting a response when compared to digital distribution. Whether you directly asked for feedback or one of your recipients simply feels like providing it, all they need to do is hit “reply.” They don’t have to find paper, an envelope, and a stamp first and you don’t need to wait to hear from them.
5. Please Green-Minded Recipients
Putting your current mailroom through a digital conversion isn’t just about making your company happy, either. It can make your customers happier, too.
As more and more people go green – especially Millennials – don’t be surprised if an increasing amount of your mail recipients would prefer a paperless option. They prioritize sustainability and, thus, would prefer to receive information online.
Digital Distribution Experts
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your company either has to rely completely on traditional mail or digital options. You can begin slowly transitioning to digital distribution methods while still keeping your current versions in place. Of course, you may always maintain some reliance on physical mail, too. That doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy as many of the above benefits as possible.
At Kelley Create, we have more than 40 years of experience helping companies improve their performances. Contact us today and let’s discuss where your company currently is with its mailing and where you’d like it to be. We can design a custom plan specific to your business that helps you reach this goal as quickly as possible.
