Though it might be easy to overlook, reliable envelope supply plays an integral role in direct-mail success for businesses, nonprofits, and marketing agencies. That’s because supply directly impacts:
- Deliverability: You must have available supply to send mailers, especially during high and unexpected demand
- Operational efficiency: Supply chain and inventory management practices can streamline or hamper operations
- Cost and ROI: Optimized envelope supply can lower costs and boost ROI
Discover how to improve deliverability, efficiency, and ROI with these tips for optimizing your organization’s envelope supply.
1. Proactive, Predictive, and Efficient Inventory Management
A proactive and predictive inventory management program can help meet demand, prevent disruptions, create efficiencies, and reduce costs. Key inventory management strategies include:
- Min/max programs: Continually monitor inventory and automatically rebuild levels as needed
- Storage efficiency: Large operations should determine whether it’s best to store envelope inventory on-site or off. Every square inch of floor space has a dollar value, and storing envelopes at your supplier frees up space for production, materials, and other business growth purposes
- First-in first-out: Organize inventory to pull the oldest stock first to prevent it from aging, discoloring, and becoming brittle
- Demand planning: Consider efficiencies of scale. Order quarterly volumes with releases rather than weekly or monthly PO’s to get price breaks that ultimately boost ROI. Analyze historical data and usage patterns to forecast demand and anticipate demand spikes due to seasonal variation and events such as elections. Continually monitor and adjust as needed
- Rely on your supplier: If you don’t have an in-house inventory management program, lean on your envelope supplier to understand what options might be available
2. Work with a Diverse Supplier
Even the best inventory management programs can face unexpected demand spikes and disruptions, so it’s important to work with a supplier that has diverse capabilities and an extended manufacturing network.
Working with a diverse supplier grants access to:
- Quality supply: Knowledgeable suppliers provide quality envelopes that work well with your machines and are easily insertable. This helps avoid issues that could waste investment and delay production and mailing
- Experience and expertise: Strategic suppliers can help identify cost efficiencies for inventory management. For example, they can recommend the best envelope sizes for USPS savings
- Multiple facilities and extended networks: A supplier with excellent reach – both internal and external – can serve you with vast capabilities and draw on their own partners to ensure you get what you need, when you need it
- Reliable, predictable service and support: A responsive supplier provides consistent service. At Priority Envelope, for example, we don’t think “can we do this?” We think, “how can we do this?”
3. Plan for and Rapidly Respond to Emergencies
Proactively plan for emergencies by:
- Assessing risk and potential impact
- Understanding customer ordering patterns and assisting with planning
- Anticipating customer needs and maintaining inventory on the floor
- Taking advantage of slow times to run product and refill inventory levels
- Identifying emergency suppliers who have backup materials on-hand, will bring on necessary staff to complete projects, can lean on a diverse network for special materials, and has processes to ensure a steady flow of jobs
Proactive inventory management, a diverse supplier base, and robust contingency plans are essential to ensuring a steady, reliable envelope supply. If you’re unsure how to optimize your envelope supply, consider working with a strategic supplier like Priority Envelope.
