Top 5 Ways Barcoding Benefits Your Business Businesses are facing major challenges In today’s difficult economic times, every business is seeking ways to cut expenses, streamline work processes and maximize profitability. One simple decision can make a substantial difference There may be no better way to improve efficiency and cut costs than by making one simple decision—to leverage the latest mail barcoding and scanning technologies.

Barcoding 101: Easier Than You Think

For those of you unfamiliar with barcoding basics, here’s a brief overview… You probably know that a barcode is a series of thin black bars of varying heights. You may not know that a scanner reads these bars and lines using light, and reconfigures the code into numbers and letters for a computer to interpret. When barcode technology was initially developed for the United States Postal Service (USPS), it transformed mail sorting from a slow, tedious, manual process into a fast, automated scanning process. Sorting not only took a fraction of the time, it also reduced addressing and delivery mistakes. Up until recently, different barcodes of varying shapes and sizes were used to carry different types of mailing data. Now, those variables have been consolidated into a single barcode that contains all the necessary address, mailing and tracking information. Like most technologies, the capabilities of barcode scanning have expanded and evolved over time. Today, barcoding is still used to sort mail quickly and accurately. However, that same technology can also be used as a powerful mailing solution that can further benefit organizations in a variety of ways.

The Top 5 Ways Barcoding Benefits Your Business Are: 1. Receiving United States Postal Service Discounts It takes the United States Postal Service (USPS) a lot more time, manpower and money to sort mail manually than it does to scan barcodes electronically. So the USPS offers substantial discounts on mail that carries a barcode and can be processed automatically. In other words, barcoded mail costs the USPS less to process, so they charge less in order to encourage its usage.

© 2011, Pitney Bowes Inc. Reproduction prohibited.

2 Top 5 Ways Barcoding Benefits Your Business

Introducing IMB—Intelligent Mail Barcoding Most recently, the USPS implemented Intelligent Mail Barcoding (IMB), which encodes up to 31 digits of mail-piece data using 65 vertical bars. This innovative barcoding system is so advanced that it assigns a unique identifying number to each piece of mail. This makes sorting, mailing and tracking more efficient than ever before. The USPS will reward an organization for complying with the IMB barcoding standards by charging a reduced postage fee on every piece of properly barcoded mail. Several pennies per piece may not seem like a lot, but every piece adds up over time. Mailing month after month, year after year, these savings can become substantial. For marketing mailings, especially, these postal savings can be reinvested to create additional campaign efforts to grow revenues. But discounts for automation are just the beginning of the potential savings opportunities… 2. Commingling, Co-palletizing and Saving Even More Intelligent Mail Barcoding does something else to improve mail-processing efficiency. It allows mail to be quickly grouped by zip and carrier codes and “commingled” in the same sorting trays for easier delivery. Further sorting at the pallet level continues to optimize mail distribution efficiency and result in additional discounts when delivered to the USPS. Both commingling and co-palletizing allow mailers with fewer pieces to get the same discounts as larger mailers by combining them all together based on delivery destination. There’s no question it is the most cost-efficient way to mail, but it only works if you use a barcode on your mail. 3. Leveraging Unprecedented Tracking Ability Using the unique identifying barcode number, mailers can view detailed information such as delivery by date, state, USPS region, bulk mail centers and sectional center facilities. In addition, marketers can track direct mail packages through the delivery process, which helps with accuracy when evaluating response rates and times. Tracking is so precise it can be done on individual pieces or specific groups of mail that share a particular source code. This kind of visibility makes it easy to make adjustments and continuously improve the effectiveness of mailings and marketing campaigns. 4. Maximizing Customer Billing Statements Utilizing Intelligent Mail Barcoding on customer billing statements offers some unique opportunities to boost revenues.

Smaller businesses with mailings of as few as 5,000

pieces can expect to:

Save between $165 and $220 per mailing

simply by using IMB to allow for commingling and

co-palletization.

3 Top 5 Ways Barcoding Benefits Your Business

Receive Customer Payments Faster When sending out customer billing statements, placing the IMB on the payment reply forms to show through the window of the reply envelopes will enable faster processing of those mail pieces. Customer payments can be received and deposited earlier, sometimes by several days, which creates more operating funds or money earning interest in the bank. Target Marketing Messages and Track Results Adding OMR marks or barcodes can greatly improve mail package preparation by making sure that the right pages and inserts are included in each mail piece. Once barcoded, the mail can be grouped, sorted and segmented to support a variety of marketing functions. For example, you can select a particular target group from your mail file to receive inserts, coupons and other individualized communications. By knowing exactly who received certain targeted communications, and when they received them, marketers can gain insights into the effectiveness of their messaging, targeting and timing. 5. Keeping Mailing Lists Clean and Current Every year more than 40 million Americans change their addresses. That means that mailing lists become outdated quickly if they are not updated regularly. In fact, the USPS now requires that all mailing lists be updated, with undeliverable addresses removed, every 95 days. Fortunately, there are some easy and affordable ways to keep mailing lists current and reduce undeliverable mail pieces before they are sent out. The USPS makes change-of-address information accessible to mailers through services like ACS (Address Correction Service) and NCOALink. When you use IMBs in combination with address updating services, the USPS electronically captures and returns address changes and undeliverable mail information. This helps you to stay compliant with USPS regulations, and avoid wasting money mailing to invalid addresses. Implement the Power of the Barcode New barcoding and scanning technology provides a higher level of segmentation, tracking and mail processing. If used correctly, it can benefit your business in a variety of ways, including: cost savings, improved efficiency, enhanced cash flow, valuable marketing data and much more. There are businesses that specialize in providing access to these kinds of services to help you get the most out of barcoding. Look into the advantages of barcoding and how the many benefits that barcode technology offers can work for your organization.

© 2011, Pitney Bowes Inc. Reproduction prohibited.

Source: Uppercue, C. “Intelligent Mail Barcode Leads List of Money-Saving Postal Technologies.” Direct. 1 Feb 2009. http://directmag.com/mail/0201-barcoding-leads-technology/