Monday 14th September 2009 - Published by Robert Trigg - Communications Executive

Mailing service trial helps save Midlands’ businesses £’000s

Discount mail service to be rolled out nationwide following trial success.
A West Midlands company has found commercial success in helping fellow enterprises reduce their mail costs during the recession.
Aldridge-based Send Marketing has successfully packaged up a way in which SMEs can take advantage of discount mailing rates normally the preserve of large corporations and volume mail houses, enabling them to maintain customer contact despite a pressure to slash costs.
And following a successful trial this summer in the West Midlands – during which the company reckons to have saved businesses £58,000 - Send is now rolling out its 27p Mailerpack to the rest of the UK.
Guy Chatburn, managing director of Send, said that firms were struggling to maintain their profile during the recession because of the costs associated with it.
“Businesses need to ensure they keep their customers aware of their continued offering; posting out sales mailers, sending catalogues, distributing offers, mailing reminders, issuing renewals statements and so on, but the costs attached to that are not cheap,” he said.
“Postal rates went up again in the spring - this time by over 10%. This spurred us to see how we could help businesses avoid this extra cost and at the same time save on all the internal costs and hassle involved in preparing and producing mailings in-house,” added Guy.
Send set up an initial trial, in the West Midlands, marketing the 27p Mailerpack - a simple-to-understand, innovatively priced and packaged low cost mailing service that can save clients up to thirty percent on their usual costs.
Guy explained: “The product is very straight forward and has been a big success: clients provide Send with their address lists and letterheads or leaflets; Send supplies a franked envelope, laserprints the letter or envelope, folds and encloses it, arranges collection and pays for 2nd class postage, with final delivery by Royal Mail. The whole service costs just 27p each, which is 3p less than the price of a second class stamp!”
From a survey of many clients already signed up to the service, Send say that typically clients are reporting savings of up to 30% on the cost of producing and sending out their business mailings.
“If you factor in the cost of office labour, toner, 2nd class franked postage and envelopes, a typical mailing costs at least 40p each, so the savings using the Mailerpack can add up to a considerable amount for large mailouts,” he added.
“We estimate that, we have saved our customers on average £725 each. That’s a combined saving of £58,000 across the West Midlands from this trail alone. The potential nationwide saving is huge.”
Send is targeting the package at small to medium sized businesses that regularly mail out from several hundred up to a few thousand items at a time. The volumes are traditionally too low to qualify for mailing sortation discounts and too small or infrequent to be of interest to large printing and mailing houses.
Guy said that Send had been overwhelmed by the response.
“A wide range of organisations have signed up - from retailers and manufacturers to service industries.  We’ve now launched the 27p Mailerpack service nationally online using a special website www.27p.co.uk. With a minimum quantity of only 200 items, the Mailerpack service is set to save many more SME businesses considerable amount of money this autumn,” said Guy.
Colin Thomas, managing director of Birmingham based H2O Car Valeting Centres said he had been impressed by the value offering Send had provided.
“We couldn’t come close to matching these prices, especially when I took into account the cost of a franking machine as well as the hassle of diverting my staff into stuffing envelopes,” he said. “The term ‘no brainer’ might be over used, but it’s completely warranted in this case!”
Visit www.27p.co.uk for more information.
ENDS
For more information, visit www.27p.co.uk or call Guy Chatburn on 01922 458763