Everyone wants to save money on their mail and direct marketing programs. The USPS has an interest in getting companies to mail more. The USPS promotions are designed to demonstrate the value of physical mail driving consumers to digital channels while providing postage discounts. The benefits for mailers include more effective mail with improved response and conversion across all channels.

The challenges in securing paper for printing and mailing are very real. The confluence of factors creating the challenges in paper supply are not likely to improve until the second quarter of 2022. In my last article I explored the perfect storm contributing to the challenging situation including:

Supply, Demand, Manufacturing cost , Distribution/transportation cost

To get perspective on the daily impact of the situation, I spoke with several print-mail service providers about their strategies to handle the challenges of longer lead times, price increases and lack of inventory. From the trenches of daily buying and managing paper, input for this article was provided by: