How to Determine if Co-mailing is Right for You

Cons:
1. You, the mailer, don’t have control over who your co-mailing partners will be. You can veto who they are, but your printer ultimately makes the decision.
2. One of your competitors could be a co-mailing partner, and thus its catalogs would arrive in customers’ homes on the same day. Of course, this could occur without co-mailing.
3. Your mail date might have to be adjusted by a day or two in order for you to participate in the co-mailing. Thus, your in-home dates could be different from what you originally planned.
4. If the company you’re co-mailing with is late with its creative files and misses its press date, it could be forced out of the co-mailing program.
5. A co-mailing partner may drop out at the last minute for any number of reasons. If so, you’re stuck without a partner, eliminating the savings you counted on.
6. You could see increased manufacturing costs to co-mail, which would eliminate most of the resulting postal savings.
7. Catalogers with large mail streams may not allow a smaller mailing to co-mail with them. Co-mailing clearly favors smaller mailers.
8. Your printer (not your service bureau) must do the pre-sort, which requires you to do a bit more coordination between those two service providers.
9. You may have to re-design your back cover and order form to accommodate your co-mailing partner(s).