How to Determine if Co-mailing is Right for You

The below chart, “Example of Potential Savings of Co-mailing,” offers an example of a typical co-mailing cost analysis. While printers may charge different prices from one another, the end result in terms of the potential savings will be similar.

The company with the lower quantity — let’s call it Mailer “B” — is charged more, since the larger mailing — from Mailer “A” — is having a greater direct impact with regard to the savings.

In our example, Mailer “A” will save $4,200, and Mailer “B” will save $2,800 after paying the printer to provide this service.

Please keep in mind that the allocation between the larger and smaller mailers is somewhat arbitrary. Most printers try to pass on the savings to the large mailer on a proportional basis. That’s why Mailer “A” was charged $5/M, while Mailer “B” was charged $16/M.

Pros and Cons of Co-mailing

Pros:
1. You’ll see postal savings due to better presort levels and possibly better drop-ship discounts. More mail will qualify at the carrier route level.
2. You’ll experience better deliverability. More carrier route or five-digit pallets will result, enabling you to penetrate the postal system deeper in the mail stream. Result: increased production flow through the postal system.

Cons:
1. You, the mailer, don’t have control over who your co-mailing partners will be. You can veto who they are, but your printer ultimately makes the decision.
2. One of your competitors could be a co-mailing partner, and thus its catalogs would arrive in customers’ homes on the same day. Of course, this could occur without co-mailing.
3. Your mail date might have to be adjusted by a day or two in order for you to participate in the co-mailing. Thus, your in-home dates could be different from what you originally planned.
4. If the company you’re co-mailing with is late with its creative files and misses its press date, it could be forced out of the co-mailing program.
5. A co-mailing partner may drop out at the last minute for any number of reasons. If so, you’re stuck without a partner, eliminating the savings you counted on.
6. You could see increased manufacturing costs to co-mail, which would eliminate most of the resulting postal savings.
7. Catalogers with large mail streams may not allow a smaller mailing to co-mail with them. Co-mailing clearly favors smaller mailers.
8. Your printer (not your service bureau) must do the pre-sort, which requires you to do a bit more coordination between those two service providers.
9. You may have to re-design your back cover and order form to accommodate your co-mailing partner(s).