Invoice printing and mailing require resources such as time, money, and people to efficiently and affordably produce them. And data accuracy, security, and 24/7 continuity present additional challenges for companies without the right expertise.

That’s why when they’re outsourced to an experienced vendor, transactional documents can become powerful engagement tools. Bills, statements, and other ordinary but essential communications can provide opportunities for a brand to build a deeper relationship with customers. 

In this article, I’ll talk about how an outside partner that can optimize the invoice process gives you several advantages in a competitive market, such as improving the efficiency of your operations. And I’ll also look at ways to transform invoices into marketing assets that supply value and enhance the customer experience.

Invoice printing and mailing may sound like routine, even boring in-house processes for many companies. They’re scheduled, consistent messages, but they can be optimized and even elevated by handing them off to an outside vendor.

Cost is probably the most important consideration in any decision to outsource invoice printing and mailing. Moving this expense off your balance sheet guards against future increases.

Besides the two biggest material costs – paper and ink – printing, inserting, and mailing equipment require energy, maintenance and operating space. If invoices are a small part of your operation, you can’t afford to be shut down if you have a labor, software, or hardware problem that comes up in your facility.

Salaries for staff positions dedicated to printing and mailing invoices can be reallocated to other functions or uses within your company.

With the right workflow processes, a vendor can print invoices more affordably as part of larger press runs. And savings on postage can be unlocked by using presort as well as commingling and co-palletization services.

An outside partner that prints and mails invoices efficiently ensures that customers receive them on a stable schedule and make their payments more quickly. This also provides a more predictable cash flow and thereby improves your operations and planning.

Putting the printing and mailing of your transactional documents into the hands of another company lets them achieve your goals more easily.

Staff members who devote part of their work schedules every week or month for invoices can give the essential responsibilities of their jobs their full attention after a switch to an outside vendor.

A printing and mailing partner has decades of expertise and a great working relationship with the post office. Your bills and statements will arrive in customer mailboxes more quickly and worry-free.

Invoices are customer touchpoints that can enhance your brand and its connection to customers when they’re outsourced to the right printing and mailing company.

When used consistently throughout the invoice – including the outer envelope – your brand becomes more recognizable and trusted.

Instead of generic, one-size-fits-all messages, use variable data printing (VDP) to present customized offers as well as representations for customer data and suggestions for further action or options.

If your brand has a significant and active presence on the web or social media, make it easy by providing links for customers to find more content as well as community.

Bills and invoices don’t have to be mundane. An outsourcing partner with decades of experience in printing and mailing invoices can draw on that expertise to create invoices that effectively communicate your messages and get acted on.

Design for invoice printing and mailing is ultimately about how it works, not how it looks. To get a customer to respond, it has to create a structure for your messaging and its supporting elements.

Besides being accurate, customer account data should include – where necessary – breakdowns of charges or links for further details or explanation.

Consistent fonts and colors, company logos, icons, and graphs all provide ways to grab a recipient’s attention.

So that the customer can easily scan the invoice, guide their eye flow with short, simple headings, subheadings, small blocks of text, and white space. Make the call-to-action as well as the most important data points unmissable.

An outsourcing company with experience in customer communications can offer options for increasing engagement with a brand.

With their own purchasing or account data as a starting point, an invoice can make more relevant upsell or cross-sell offers or leverage tracking of how customers use a product or service to provide options that save money or build loyalty or rewards.

More so than a simple web address, QR codes and PURLs connect customers to specific landing pages for special custom offers, options for viewing personal account information, or quickly contacting customer service representatives for assistance.

Educational ideas or tips related to the company’s product or service provides immediate value as well as builds trust in the brand.

Companies and organizations with an in-plant may encounter obstacles to their workday for invoice printing and mailing tasks. Outsourcing offers solutions that result in the timely delivery of your mail and payment of customer invoices.

Outside printing companies can easily integrate your accounting system and the data it holds with their production workflow, ensuring that there are no bottlenecks to overcome in printing and mailing.

When you work with a printing and mailing company, they’ll have the capacity to scale up or scale down mail volume for your invoices based on seasonality or other factors. Their size and expertise gives them the ability to more easily schedule production and delivery into the postal system around your needs.

Because an outside vendor already has a 24/7 commitment to quality, they’ll be able to catch any problems that come up in the printing, folding, inserting, and mailing processes, giving your production staff peace of mind.

Your customers’ personal data deserves to be protected with the best safety and security. Investments in state-of-the-art technologies and procedures prevent any privacy compliance issues and safeguard your company’s reputation.

Regulated industries have strict data security requirements. Outsourcing invoices to a printing and mailing vendor ensures continuing compliance with federal government and privacy regulations such as HIPAA, giving all parties peace of mind.

Full-service professional outsourcing companies treat customer data and its privacy well, ensuring that customers feel and are secure. They put in place comprehensive security measures and procedures to guarantee the confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility of your customers’ information along the full production process.

For example:

Outsourcing the printing and mailing of your invoices provides backup and always-on service for natural disasters, power losses, data breaches, and other business-threatening events. THe right vendor prioritizes protecting your data with robust hardware and software access controls and protocols.

Here at mailing.com, we’re a trusted printing and mailing company with the expertise and technology to produce and mail your invoices securely, affordably, and accurately. As a leading provider of mission-critical transactional mailing services, we work with some of the largest and most demanding clients in the country to offer a comprehensive, end-to-end solution with unmatched customer service. Reach out to us for more details on how we can successfully partner with you.