Tis’ the Season to be…Mailing Stuff

Plan now, to make the holiday mailing season smoother

As you are doing your fall mailing season planning, don’t forget about tracking your replies with Informed Visibility. There are a few ways to do this, and there is still plenty of time to add it to your fall mailings – but you need to do some planning.

Between a November election and end-of-the-year fundraising efforts, the last few months of the year generate a whole lot of mail. At ProList, we are scheduling around the clock shifts, adding staff, and oiling up the computers so all that data will slide right through them. Here’s a bit of advice from our team on some steps you can take to avoid the mailing season blues:

• To expedite processing, send data, instructions, a production grid, and PDF’s with art and copy all at the same time. This helps keep things better organized and provides for better package planning and scheduling.
• Allow extra time for turnaround of print production. We are already seeing longer than average turn times due to paper shortages.
• Consider digital printing where possible to speed production times. It can essentially remove a step in the direct mail production process.
• If you have questions on package design or production options, contact us as soon as possible so we can evaluate the package requirements and come up with alternatives and suggestions if applicable. If you’re not sure about something – please ask! It’s a lot easier to fix before production.
• Please notify your production representative as soon as you know a project will be coming our way. This way we can get it scheduled and provide you with a production schedule of important dates, etc. necessary to hit the projected mail date.
• Be sure to send postage (or deposit it to the appropriate permit account) well in advance of mail dates, so projects aren’t held up at the last minute pending postage.
• If you will be available to proof and approve counts, set-ups, insertions, etc. in off-hours (i.e. in the evening or over weekends), please let us know. That can help expedite turn times since our production team here is frequently working those additional hours.

Please understand that all printers and mailers are at or beyond capacity in the fall. The Postal Service is dealing with an exceptional load, too. If things start to go off schedule early in the process, it is very hard to make it up at the end.

So, we wish all of our customers a happy and prosperous mailing season.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…or are we too early with that song...?