Whether you’ve got catalogs to send out to potential customers or sales fliers that need to get to existing clientele, all that paperwork has to come from somewhere.
Doing it yourself can be an all-encompassing project, eating up valuable workspace as well as the time your employees could be spending doing something more productive. When you need someone to help you get your mail out on time and under budget, you need a 3PL that offers literature fulfillment.
What is Literature Fulfillment?
Literature fulfillment is all about designing, printing and distributing printed goods to your customers. It’s often a service offered along with warehousing and fulfillment services, since your 3PL already has a database full of customers and the facilities and specialized equipment that allows them to respond to mailer requests in a timely fashion.
But, it doesn’t stop at direct mail — literature fulfillment can also be used to personalize your packages or send coupons to loyal customers along with their orders. Adding a sheet of coupons to every order is as simple as asking your 3PL to include them.
Literature Fulfillment Can Increase Orders
It’s amazing the power a simple sales sheet can have, but there are other ways that literature fulfillment can boost your sales, including:
Informing customers about new products. There’s nothing like a glossy flier to announce a new product line or price reduction. Keeping customers informed means increased sales of items they might have not considered you’d stock.
Increasing loyalty with special discount offers. Every eCommerce customer is out to find the best deal possible. Customers may prefer to buy from you, but can easily be led astray by special offers by other businesses. Rewarding their loyalty with special discount fliers with their orders will keep their interest focused on you.
Giving customers a tactile way to interact with your online company. Catalogs are going digital, but not all customers are ready for that move. Many would still like to have a physical connection to your business — a catalog is a great way to bridge that gap and expose them to new items in your store.
Introducing yourself to new customers. Direct mail is still a very good way of introducing yourself to new customers. According to the Direct Marketing Association, direct mail still dramatically outperforms digital marketing efforts, with direct mail returning a one percent response rate to email’s one-tenth percent response rate.
Literature fulfillment may seem like an optional service in this digital age, but your customers still appreciate a catalog or sales flier now and then. By utilizing this tried-and-true tool for customer acquisition and retention, you’ll spend significantly less time chasing new leads and more time doing business.
