Marketers and business owners often find themselves in a dilemma—wanting to reach a specific, small audience to benefit from direct mail targeting without overspending on postage or wasting resources.

Luckily, there is Direct Mail Commingling, a game-changing strategy that allows businesses to launch small direct mail campaigns with minimum costs and resources. Imagine sending impactful messages to a select group of individuals while enjoying the benefits of bulk mail discounts.

In this blog, we'll go into detail on what commingling is, its advantages, how it works, and more.

Bulk Mail Discounts for Small Direct Mail Campaigns

For many reasons, marketers often send out direct mail to small audiences. These reasons may include wanting to increase their ROI and save money by targeting a smaller audience consisting of only individuals most likely to buy from them. They may want to target only a select few in a specific neighborhood based on demographic or buying activity, or they are cautious about their environmental footprint and want to ensure they mail only to those interested. Or perhaps they wish to send out thank you cards automatically from their CRM as first-time customers place orders to encourage repeat business, resulting in sending only a handful of cards a week. All smart strategies that help their company grow.

In the past, using traditional direct mail, these marketers would have to pay single-piece postage or use First Class Non-presort to mail their pieces, which can be costly. Otherwise, they would have to increase their audience size to at least 200 to take advantage of bulk mail discounts.

Luckily, this isn’t the case anymore, thanks to Direct Mail Commingling, which allows companies to send direct mail to small audiences while taking advantage of bulk mail discounts.

Understanding Direct Mail Commingling

Direct Mail Commingling is a mailing process that allows businesses to maximize their postal discounts and reach targeted audiences effectively. Unlike traditional mailings, commingling combines mail from multiple companies, allowing them to collectively meet USPS quantity requirements for bulk mail discounts.

Advantages of Direct Mail Commingling

All in all, Direct Mail Commingling has many benefits, including saving you a lot of money. Instead of having to mail to a large audience or spend extra money on expensive postage, you can mail to smaller, more targeted audiences while taking advantage of bulk mail discounts.

Some benefits of Direct Mail Commingling include:

Postage Savings:

Bulk mail refers to large mailings (200 mail pieces or more) that are mailed at reduced postage costs and apply to First-Class and Standard Mail—also referred to as Marketing Mail. Bulk mail postage costs less than single-piece postage because you or your mail provider handles the heavy lifting of sorting the mail by ZIP code or bringing the mail to the postal facility that the USPS otherwise would have to handle.

When taking advantage of Direct Mail Commingling, whether you are sending 1 or 100 mail pieces, your print and direct mail provider combines your mailings with other companies so that your small mailing now qualifies for bulk mail discounts. For example, if you were to mail 10 postcards with single-piece postage, printing and mailing costs could be over $50. By comingling your 10 postcards, the cost to print and mail them is only around $10.

Targeted Approaches

If you aren’t familiar with the benefits of targeted direct mail campaigns, they include reduced costs and waste and increased response rates and sales. This is because targeting involves reaching individuals who matter most, whether that be specific demographics, individuals who showed interest in your product, people who share the same characteristics as your current customers, and more.

While targeted campaigns can be large, like a pizzeria sending a postcard to 200 local consumers who frequently dine at pizzerias, oftentimes, targeted audiences are relatively small. For example, a company mailing thank you postcards to first-time buyers each week may only send out 1-25 postcards per week. Or a lawncare company may want to target 35 households surrounding their recent customer. In cases like these, companies can benefit from a targeted approach while benefiting from bulk mail discounts.

Higher Response Rates & ROI

When you mail to smaller targeted audiences, you reach individuals most likely to respond to your direct mail message. This increases response rates and conversions, and you avoid irrelevant mailings and wasted resources.

In addition, following up is essential for any marketing campaign, and reaching smaller audiences allows you to follow up and better connect with your audience. For example, following up with 100 interested prospects is more effective than following up with 500 random individuals. This is because following up, whether via phone, email, or a second mail piece, requires careful timing and attention to nurture those prospects into customers. Because of this, following up with 100 individuals in a timely fashion allows you to put more care and attention into each interaction, thus increasing your ROI.

Environmentally Conscious Practices

Some companies may want to launch small direct mail campaigns and reach only the people who matter most to generate the best ROI and save paper and resources.

Traditionally, when going through a print and direct mail provider, these companies would have to order a specific quantity, select a smaller mailing quantity, and then recycle the remaining mail pieces that will not be mailed. For example, if they wanted to send out 35 6x9 postcards, they would have to order at least 50 (this is due to the way jobs are laid on press sheets and how quantities must be in specific increments) and then recycle or ship the remaining 15 postcards. This results in wasted paper and costs more than they need. When commingling, these 35 postcards can be printed alongside other companies to reach an ideal printing quantity, resulting in no more wasted paper or resources and allowing the companies to pay for only what they need.

The Process of Direct Mail Commingling

The process of Direct Mail Commingling is simple. How it works is that your print and direct mail provider combines your small mailing with other companies.

For example, suppose you are looking to mail to 98 prospects who all showed interest in your products. Company B is sending birthday postcards with a coupon to 45 customers who have a birthday that given month, and Company C would like to reach 57 prospects who live near their top customer. In that case, all three mailings can be combined using commingling to give the USPS 200 mail pieces equivalent to their minimum quantity for bulk mail postage discounts.

There are a few direct mail strategies where commingling is the best option. For instance, if you create a targeted audience using Proximity Mailing, a custom mailing list tool, Look A-Like Analysis, or Propensity Mailing and have less than 200 individuals to mail to, then opting for Direct Mail Commingling is your ideal option so that you save on postage. In some cases, as it is for Proximity Mailing—the solution where you can mail to your current customer’s neighbors—your print and direct mail provider will automatically commingle your mailers when needed to ensure you get the best price. Another situation where commingling is automatically applied to save you money is with Direct Mail CRM Integration. This is where mail pieces like postcards are automatically sent from your CRM or marketing automation platform based on triggers like buying activity, birthdays, if someone hasn’t ordered in a while, opens a specific email, or visits a particular page on your website. Because this automation may result in you sending 1, 25, 50, or 200 mail pieces in a given timeframe, your print and direct mail provider sends them for you and commingles them as needed to reduce your costs.

Tips and Best Practices

For some situations, as mentioned above, Direct Mail Commingling is automatically utilized for you by your print and direct mail provider. However, in other cases, you will need to determine if it's the best option for you. Suppose you are planning to launch a small direct mail campaign that includes less than 200 individuals. In that case, commingling is most likely the best option.

Another thing to consider when taking advantage of Direct Mail Commingling is the design. Because your mail pieces will be combined with other companies' mailings, the mailing panel needs to be in a specific place so everyone's the same. The mailing panel is the 4" x 2.25" area you leave blank in your design for the address information and mailing indicia. See an example of where this mailing panel is placed for commingling in this section. To help set up your commingled mailer design, ask your print and direct mail provider for a free design template to ensure that your direct mail design is accurately set up to print and mail seamlessly.

Another tip and best practice for commingling includes optimizing your mailing list. By doing so, you will not only save on postage thanks to bulk mail discounts, but you will also gain the best ROI. For example, suppose you mail to just the nearest 100 households surrounding your restaurant. In that case, you may reach individuals who aren't interested in your food or can't eat it. Instead, to gain the best results, fine-tune your targeting efforts by reaching 100 local households with individuals who frequently dine at restaurants like yours or have even eaten at your competitors.

In addition, whether you are launching a large or small direct mail campaign, make sure that your direct mail design stands out. It should align with your branding, include eye-catching design elements, an irresistible call to action, and a method to track your results, such as a QR code, promo code, coupon, unique URL, or call tracking number.

Choosing the Right Partner for Direct Mail Commingling

When looking for a print and direct mail provider who offers Direct Mail Commingling, there are a few things to look for. Not only should you always look for a provider who offers high-quality materials, fast speeds, low prices, and a friendly customer service team, but you should also find a provider who provides the following:

• A full-service mailing center so that you can save time by letting them mail your direct mail pieces for you
• A process in which, for specific solutions, they will automatically commingle your mailers for you, so you get the best value every time
• Experience and knowledge with Direct Mail Commingling 
• Experience with working closely with the USPS
• Free design templates to ensure your direct mail designs are set up to print and mail without any hiccups

At Kingston Printing, we offer all of the above, deliver commingling services to businesses daily, and are ready to help you save money on your next small direct mail campaign.

If you're interested in taking advantage of bulk mail discounts for your small campaign, check out our commingled mailer product page to get a quote for just how much your small direct mail campaign could save you.