Explained:

Commingling is the physical combination of direct mail from various marketers into a consolidated “mailstream” to guarantee the absolute highest volume and entry-point discounts for all mailers.

First Class mailers have been taking advantage of commingling for years. An emerging trend of presort bureaus is that direct marketers, ad agencies, printing houses, non-profits and businesses alike, are beginning to commingle Standard or marketing mail as well.

Typically, this process strives to enable “five-digit Zip” discounts; where by at least 150 mail pieces are bundled to each respective area (Small discounts are available for bundling to broader areas, including “three digit ZIP” zones).

With commingling, Standard A mailers can more economically combine and ship both their control mailings as well as test groups. In addition to expanded, deeper discounts for Section Center Facilities (SCF) and Bulk Mail Centers (BMC), entry and actual mail delivery of all groups is now more consistent and timely to each destination. Commingling Standard mail provides greatly expanded savings, company reach, impact, and response, through the traditional marketing vehicle of direct mail.

Simple Procedure:

Your agency or lettershop takes your mail file and sorts it into zip code sequence. Then the lettershop will image only the Zip + 4 bar code and address information onto the address panel. There is no additional Optional Endorsement Line necessary.

Virtual Global Services picks up the finished mail and ships to our processing center, which then sorts each individual piece of mail to either the BMC or SCF entry-level based on a collective total of 5-7 million pieces from other mailers, providing you with the deepest postal penetration and saturation discounts.

For more information, please see the following DM News article: http://www.dmnews.com/Commingle-Mail-to-Save-on-Postage/article/77909/

As well as the following Target Marketing Mag article:

Additional Postal Optimization Opportunities:

• Aggressive presorting programs that maximize postal discounts based upon address Move-On record integrity and saturation;
• BMC & SCF Drop-Shipping for maximum entry-point postage discounts;
• Data hygiene and campaign optimization programs that help reduce waste caused by undeliverable mail or incomplete addresses;
• Other logistics strategies such as; optimal packaging, targeted in-home delivery dates, load planning, reporting, co-palletization and logistical and production analysis, that determine the most efficient delivery options.