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Direct mail often drives 10-30x higher response rates than digital tactics, especially among millennials.

Are you wondering how you can reduce your direct mail costs while still increasing the accuracy of direct mail? One way is to partner with a print vendor that uses intelligent inserting to increase accuracy and efficiency in your direct mail campaigns.

What is Intelligent Inserting?

Intelligent inserting combines cameras with 2D barcode technology to ensure that the right inserts are matched with the right envelopes, and that no mail piece is left behind. 2D barcodes are printed on each component of the mail piece for 100% verified accurate matching.

Machines operating with 2D barcode technology use an innovative camera system to identify matching errors, doubles, and missing components in real-time. This allows mistakes to be caught mid-stream rather than at the end, reducing manual verification and correction. It can also allow recipients within the same mail stream to receive different inserts, allowing marketers to create truly customized direct mail messages while reducing their production costs.

Benefits of Intelligent Production

Accuracy

The primary benefit of partnering with a direct mail company that uses 2D barcode technology is package-level accuracy. Between the barcodes and the cameras, mistakes are caught and corrected immediately, reducing or eliminating the incidence of errors.

Security

Accuracy is particularly important for regulated industries such as healthcare or finance, where mailings often contain sensitive information that requires 100% accuracy in order to avoid liability. In these cases, accuracy is an essential security measure.

But accuracy isn’t the only benefit of intelligent inserting, and companies outside regulated industries can also benefit from partnering with a print vendor that uses 2D barcode technology.

Here are a few other beneficial by-products of 100% accurate direct mail:

Efficiency

Direct mail allows marketers to send personalized messages to each record in their database. Intelligent inserting takes this one step further and enables variable page counts and different inserts to be sent to each recipient in one mail stream, eliminating the need for multiple jobs and ultimately reducing production costs.

Reporting

Intelligent inserting machines with integrated reporting software can produce a comprehensive performance report after the job is complete. Companies can use this report to integrate the campaign with other marketing channels, upload the report to a call center database for ongoing customer care, or keep it on file for proof of mailing.

Brand Integrity

Sending error-free direct mail campaigns protects your brand integrity from being eroded by mistakes such as double-stuffing or mismatched envelopes. 

100% accurate direct mail matching is just one of the ways 2D barcode technology can be used for intelligent inserting. Learn about the other ways intelligent inserting technology can improve your direct mail campaigns and increase ROI.

Download our Secure Marketing Communications Checklist to help you find a vendor you can trust with your sensitive data. 

Editor’s Note: This blog was originally posted in August 2017 and has been updated with fresh content.