UK postal charges are increasing significantly at the end of April. A standard first class stamp is increasing 30% from 46p to 60p and second class increasing 39% from 36p to 50p. Here is a link to the new Royal Mail Price List In business these days, the post tends to be used consistently in three areas:
- Deliveries of physical goods
- Marketing communications
- To send out invoices to customers
Although email is not much help in the delivery of physical goods, it is actually a great alternative for the other two:
Marketing Communications
Using email to keep in touch with customers & contacts is increasingly becoming our bread and butter, with a growing number of clients seeing the benefits of regular email marketing. On top of savings on postage costs you are also saving on print, envelopes and fulfillment so that resources can be focused on the important thing, the message. furthermore, because costs are reduced, the idea of sending messages regularly becomes practical.
Its not just a theory
We highlighted a great example of the benefits of email a couple of weeks ago in this case study. The original project was planned to include both email and mail, but the success of the emailing phase of the project meant that the mailing campaign was dropped, thus delivering the objectives of the campaign, significantly under budget. Again the cost savings can be significant. If we take our basic emailworks package at £59 which allows you to send up to 1500 emails per month, this is equivalent to mailing only 100 people, and that is ignoring costs of stationary & print. Furthermore, because email is interactive, it is much easier to measure results and develop campaigns based on feedback. If you would like to talk to us about how email marketing could help you, please give us a call.
Send your invoices by email
Where volumes of invoices are not high, emailing invoices rather than sending them by post is simple. All you need do is print the invoice to a pdf using a free tool like Primo PDF rather than to a printer and then attach the invoice to a standard email. If your invoicing volumes are higher and this solution is not practical, then there are many online invoicing systems available. Although these do usually carry a charge, if you are sending large numbers of invoices this cost will be offset by the reduction is postal charges. Although this is not intended to be a review of online accountancy systems, two systems that we have had experience of, are:
- www.kashflow.co.uk – UK bases system that offers invoicing and a full accountancy package on line for around £16/month
- www.freshbooks.com – US based system, and probably one of the market leaders – costs around $30/month
So if you are sending 20-30 invoices a month, either of these becomes cost effective. Alternatively, if none of these tools match your requirements, we have developed a bespoke email based invoicing system for our own use and would be happy to discuss the possibility of building a similar system to meet your needs.
