The bright alternatives to Royal Mail

If you live in the UK, you’ll be well aware that Royal Mail has been in the news a lot recently, and sometimes for the wrong reasons. As a result, businesses are inevitably considering the possible alternatives to serve their mailing needs. Reassuringly, Royal Mail isn’t the only company who can handle bulk business mail.

In a nutshell, there are two stages in the journey of a mailed letter. These are known as ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’, with Royal Mail’s sorting offices being the half way point between the two. Traditional postmen and women, walking the street - the ‘downstream’ part of the journey - make up the only side of the coin that most of us see. Pretty much all of this downstream work is carried out by Royal Mail employees. However, mail needs to arrive at the sorting office in the first place. This initial part of the journey - the ‘upstream’ side - is no longer monopolised by Royal Mail. Since 2003, other providers have been allowed to enter the postal market. In fact, the UK currently has 41 licensed postal operators. This has opened up healthy competition in the Downstream Access market which, of course, ultimately offers lower prices for customers.

TPM is a state-of-the-art mailing house where bulk letters are printed and inserted into envelopes before being released into the postal system. This can be done using the Royal Mail or alternatively TPM provide a Downstream Access solution delivering the envelopes directly to the relevant Royal Mail sorting offices. Because Royal Mail only carry out the ‘final mile’ part of the operation, it means TPM can offer their customers substantial postal discounts.

But why continue using mail at all?

Well, Direct Mail advertising campaigns are enjoying renewed popularity at present. A personalised item of mail offers the recipient a welcome antidote to the impersonal nature of digital marketing. A mailing also tends to give the sender a high return on investment due to its perceived value when compared to a blanket email. In our giddy, digital age, exposed to the threat of cyber crime, physical mail also offers welcome security to both sender and receiver.

There’s pretty much no limit to what you can put inside a direct mail pack. TPM have an in-house hand-enclosing service for any items that can’t be mechanically enclosed by their high spec mailing machines.

Customers can take advantage of substantial postal discounts such as the ‘Mailsort’ initiative which prepares bulk amounts of mail in a particular order, before it’s given to the end distributor. Similarly, ‘Mailmark’ is a cost-saving technology used for large or small letters where machine-readable barcodes are replacing the need for traditional stamps or franking machines. These cost-saving services aren’t the sole preserve of Royal Mail. Private Downstream Access providers such as TPM offer them too.

So, if you’re worried about rising postage costs eating into your marketing budget, a mailing campaign could cost less than you think.