How Lahlouh Can Help You Create Significant Savings on Your Direct Mail Campaigns

With rising direct mail costs and increased complexity, there’s a lot to keep up with in the world of direct mail. From varying postage rates on mail type, class, and size, to hitting postage guidelines and regulations, to deciphering which, if any, postage promotions are available and applicable, there’s a lot to keep track of. 

But did you know not optimizing your direct mail could be costing you thousands of dollars?

At Lahlouh, we take care of tracking these trends, regulations, guidelines, and promotions with rigorous attention to detail so that we can give you the lowest cost per mail piece possible. While direct mail continues to be one of the most effective means of communication with an ROI of nearly 30%, a direct mail solutions partner like Lahlouh can help you take that ROI even further. How? By diving deep into three important categories with our extensive experience and vast expertise.

1. Mailpiece Design

The first step in playing (and winning) the direct mail game is to make sure your mail piece delivery is both:

• Meeting the proper guidelines and regulations.
• Fully automated within the postal system.

If designed incorrectly, using mail that doesn’t comply with these regulations will lead to higher rates, processing delays, and higher per-piece surcharges. That’s why Lahlouh offers a full suite of design review services not only to make sure you comply with regulations but to maximize your design even further with adjustments that meet your campaign objectives and save on postage.

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Direct Mail Design Best Practices + USPS Guidelines

When designing your direct mail campaigns, it’s essential you optimize your mail for both cost and delivery efficiency. Depending on the type and class of mail, you’ll need to make sure your mail piece meets the USPS standards for size, layout, and weight.  

Well-designed mail ensures:

• You’ll qualify for better USPS postage rates 
• Faster, more streamlined processing of your mail

Plenty of specifics go into mailpiece design and following proper mailpiece guidelines, and it can be a challenge to make sure you’re ticking all the right boxes. For example, flats and letters must meet strict thickness and flexibility standards, while address placement and barcode inclusion must follow USPS regulations. Adhering to size, aspect ratio, and flexibility rules are crucial to prevent mail from being classified as nonmachinable, or not being able to be processed by standard automated machines. 

As your direct mail partner, Lahlouh’s design review team can ensure you’re following these guidelines so you can reduce costs and improve delivery times.

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Automating Your Direct Mail with Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMb)

IMb, or Intelligent Mail Barcode, is a 65-bar barcode that USPS uses to track and sort mail. The IMb allows businesses to qualify for full-service automation discounts and offers real-time tracking and delivery data, making it a crucial element in modern mail processing for both efficiency and savings.  

Incorporating an Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMb) not only allows for better tracking of your mail but also qualifies you for additional discounts. This barcode streamlines USPS processing and ensures your mail is tracked from start to finish, maximizing savings and delivery accuracy. 

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2. Postage Optimization: Cut Costs & Improve Delivery

It’s easy to get lost in the sea of varying postage rates, postage types, and mailing solutions. Luckily, this is where Lahlouh will step in to be your postal advocate helping you sort through the chaos. How? By using a strategic combination of automation and entry discounts. 

We’ll analyze your mail data to:

• Find common destinations that allow us to drive your mail deep into the US Postal network for additional savings

• Commingle your smaller mailings with other marketing mail so you can take advantage of the lower rates that larger companies are awarded while also providing faster delivery.

As mail prices continue to rise, it’s more important than ever to optimize your mailing practices. By taking advantage of key postal strategies, you can reduce costs and improve delivery efficiency. Here's how we can help you get the most out of your mail campaigns while saving money along the way.

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Sortation Discounts

By partnering with Lahlouh, you can also take advantage of our commingling services, which combine your mail with other smaller mailers to qualify for bigger presort discounts. While presorting alone can reduce costs, commingling allows for even more discounts, resulting in significant savings and improved performance. 

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Address Quality, Return Options, and Secure Destination

While this one might seem straightforward, address quality plays a huge role in reducing waste and avoiding extra fees for your direct mail campaign. Poorly addressed mail that is undeliverable can result in higher costs, but by helping you improve your address quality, we can minimize returned mail and ensure more pieces reach their destination. Additionally, offering return options can also help manage your undeliverable mail more effectively.

For First-Class Mail, we can take advantage of Secure Destruction to save money and avoid handling returns, eliminating the cost of managing undeliverable mail while continuing to support environmentally friendly practices.

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Seamless Acceptance

We can automate the mailing process even further with Seamless Acceptance, which automates the entry and verification of your direct mailings. With Seamless Acceptance, you can reduce errors and ensure a faster, smoother entry into the USPS system, improving overall mailing efficiency and making it easier to take advantage of the best postage rates.

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Dropship and Destination Entry

By using dropshipping and destination entry, your direct mail bypasses unnecessary USPS processing steps, reaching its final destination faster. This method allows us to reduce handling costs and target specific in-home dates, ensuring a more timely and efficient delivery

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3. Direct Mail USPS Promotions

As a business, you want to be using every USPS promotion available and applicable to your direct mail campaign. However, this can often be hard to accomplish as USPS promotions are constantly changing. That’s why many businesses, even larger ones, might not even be aware of these promotions, let alone know the best way to use them.

Lahlouh will be your partner to scope out the best postage promotions so you can take advantage of these opportunities, earning you significant savings on your direct mail campaigns.

USPS promotions offer businesses the chance to save significantly on postage. Programs like Informed Delivery provide a digital preview of mail, helping recipients engage with your content before it even reaches them. These promotions can save your businesses up to 6% on postage while offering a unique opportunity to differentiate your brand. 

Navigating these promotions can be challenging, but at Lahlouh, we offer a seamless, integrated mail experience. 

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Your Direct Mail Solution

There are tons of direct mail companies and mailing houses to choose from, so why Lahlouh? Lahlouh has been in the business of 40+ years, and we take extra pride in aggressively tracking the constant shifts that occur in the direct mail atmosphere. Outside of direct mail, we’re also your partner in print (including digital, offset, and large format printing), fulfillment and distribution services, package design and branded merchandising, and online solutions, making it easy to manage all of your marketing collateral in just one place.

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Reach out now and we can start streamlining your direct mail campaigns + beyond.