More Reasons Why Lettershop is Important

Welcome to the Dove Direct Print and Marketing Blog. Today's post, "More Reasons Why Lettershop is Important," revisits how critical it is to invest in lettershop solutions, which in turn enables your marketing strategies to be more cost-effective and efficient by delivering personalized content to your target market. When direct mail is personal and customized, it impacts customers and prospects in ways that demonstrate the organization not only understands their concerns and needs but is willing to take the time to attract them.

Customized, personalized direct mail marketing is beyond critical, in that direct mail pieces that are recycled without updated data sends one of three messages:

• The brand is not interested in the customer per se,
• The brand is making a conscious marketing decision to save money, or
• The brand is just too lazy to care.


For example, an outdoor billboard advertisement is impactful the first week; however, when the billboard or content remains stagnant for months on end, that advertisement's impact begins to wane.   Sure, those outdoor billboards are in plain sight; however, that stale content will suffer from the law of diminishing returns.

If not refreshed and personalized for each recipient and each run, direct mail can also experience the fate of customers and prospects opting to find the nearest trash can. Therefore, brand value is tied directly to how a brand markets its products, solutions, and services. When direct mail marketing is personal and customized, customers and prospects engage on a higher level. They will immediately perceive value as inherent, which trips their interest levels, and finally spurs them to touch, feel, and read through the content. Lettershop provides the functionality to ensure that this activity comes together.

Quote of the Day: Unlike sitting at a computer screen, printing is very direct and hands-on. - Christian Marclay


Lettershop Definition and Services

Lettershop, can mirror the functions found in a mail house.  With Lettershop, you can customize, print, personalize, and mail direct mail pieces all from under one roof. Lettershop also provides businesses with the ability to consolidate several solutions into a streamlined set of services. Streamlining the services and functions leads to better outcomes and offers a mechanism to keep your project cost-effective and efficient. Lettershop also opens up time for the organization to deal with other business concerns, such as sales and outreach.

Lettershop services can offer a wide range of solutions that can consolidate any marketing project. Of course, this depends on the infrastructure, hardware, and software of the print/lettershop provider. Add experience to those attributes, as vendors and providers that have risen to the level of excellence in the lettershop field are more likely to perform a lettershop job properly having more knowledge of the ins and outs of lettershop executions.

Some of the lettershop solutions you should look for in a one-stop-shop vendor include:

• Automated and Manual processing of Letters, Postcards, Literature Requests, Membership Materials, Books, Booklets, Catalogs, CD's, Newsletters, Self-Mailers, Flats, Promotional Items, and Transactional Documents.
  
  

• Additional solutions include Cutting, Folding, Ink Jetting, Tabbing (Offline and In-line), Metering, Match Mailing, Collating, and Address Labeling, Gluing, Intelligent Inserting, Kit Assembly, Logistics, Sealing, Shrink Wrap, Stamping

Your vendor should also employ intelligent automated equipment within each process, allowing document matching capabilities and integrity throughout processing.

Typically, a one-stop-shop that offers a wide range of lettershop solutions also provides fulfillment services.



Fulfillment Goes Hand in Hand with Lettershop

Fulfillment Solutions go hand in hand with lettershop services and can help you automate fulfillment, reduce your shipping costs, and expand into new markets. In addition, Fulfillment can include:

• Document on Demand printing; eliminating the need for mass volume printing and storage of documents.
  
  
• Fulfillment can also provide electronic ordering communications, inventory management, and advanced logistics.

Further, when implementing a Lettershop solution, that requirement can frequently be aided with fulfillment and an automated MLOCR Presort provider. 



Lettershop, Fulfillment, and MLOCR

When an organization is investing in Lettershop and Fulfillment, one more critical aspect that may be necessary is MLOCR.

MLOCR, aka multi-line optical-character reader, is a presort machine that can automatically sort the mail, improving delivery time and business savings. Often referred to as a fully automated MLOCR Presort Bureau solution, this can reduce mailing costs, provide delivery verification, tracking and tracing, expedite and automate mail sorting, and ensure delivery.  Vendors that offer more robust MLOCR solutions include:

• Being an authorized combined bar-coded presort mailer, allowing the vendor to co-mingle mail from various customers. The presort services provided in that scenario increase sorting, affording customers the broadest possible presort savings. 


  
  
• Affords customers access to an Act-Tag System, which improves the delivery time frame by one to two days on mail that must be routed via airmail. 


  
  
• These vendors can also be IMB certified, according to USPS regulations, and can read, sort, and generate the IMB and offer additional savings with mail tracking and delivery confirmation services.

Marketing in a world where the pandemic continues to pose health threats is of significant concern to businesses and marketers alike. Many continue to grapple with the weekly Coronavirus trends that are on the rise again. Consequently, those who can remain sheltered-in-place continue to do so.

This pandemic is changing consumer behavior among B2B and B2C sectors. Behavior is evolving so fast that B2B buyers now expect the same type of B2C personalized content for their perusal. For B2B, this includes Direct Mail Marketing, with all the bells and whistles of a mail campaign such as customized, personalized, and well thought out marketing communications primarily achieved with direct mail.

The Net-Net

We hope all enjoyed a great Labor Day Holiday, with rest and time to reflect. Again, we offer our heartfelt thanks and prayers to those on the front lines battling this pandemic. We also offer our condolences to those we've lost during this trying period.

We are in an election year. To that end, all politicians should be considering more direct mail marketing, as it is regarded as the most trustworthy manner of marketing and advertising. Brands of all sizes should also consider adding direct mail to their end of the year marketing push, as those mail pieces will be read and are clutter-free. We appreciate our loyal readers and supporters of Dove Direct. Thanks for reading "More Reasons Why Lettershop is Important!"

Let's have a conversation about integrated business solutions and how they can help grow your business, change behavior, and improve the customer experience. We can discuss how to improve your document processes to optimize your workflow, reduce costs, and maximize your organization's printing, lettershop, and mailing capabilities. 



Dove Direct has an official USPS certified bureau located within our offices that will save you time and money.  We can even create a demo file for you.  For more information, call Carla Eubanks at 404-629-0122 or email Carla at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 




Dove Direct, your Atlanta based print and mail solutions provider, offers organizations end-to-end data, printing, and mailing solutions:

• Data Management
• Variable Digital Printing
• LetterShop and Fulfillment
• Fully Automated MLOCR Presort Bureau
• Marketing and Production Management Support
• Secure Data Life Cycle Management


If you don't want to wait, you can reach Dove Direct today by calling 404-629-0122 or use the Contact Form for Dove Direct.