In today’s challenging economic climate, small publishers need to be more creative than ever to sustain profitability. This means looking closely at every aspect of your publishing enterprise and eeking out savings wherever you can. Distribution is just one segment of the magazine lifecycle with savings potential. Although the price of postage continues to rise steadily, the Postal Service’s focus on automation and worksharing has created significant discount opportunities if you can take advantage of them. The worksharing program that gets the most hype, and promises the biggest savings, is co-mailing. The question on the minds of most small publishers we talk with is: Will it work for us? While it’s true that co-mailing is built on the needs of large publishers and distributors, it has real potential for small publishers.

 

Since Lane Press began offering co-mailing in June 2007, a number of our customers have participated in the program. Now that these customers have each completed up to a year of co-mailed issues, we asked them what the biggest challenges were – and whether co-mailing has proven worthwhile.

Change Is Never Easy

In most cases, co-mailing requires publishers to change. How significant these adjustments are depends not only on simple factors such as the frequency of your publication (lower frequency means more time to meet co-mailing’s firm deadlines) but also on the willingness of an organization to change its practices and procedures.

For example, co-mail participants are required to pay their postage through a CAPS account. This is an online debit system wherein the Postal Service automatically deducts your postage payment when your magazines are ready to mail. The trick is that you must have enough funds in your CAPS account to cover your total postage or your magazines won’t mail. Ensuring this availability of funds when your exact postage isn’t known until the last minute can be a challenge for some publishers. Depending on how you manage your accounts payable system, this may require some adjustment.

John Falcioni, Publisher of Mechanical Engineering, explains that for The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, “The CAPS system was a bit of a to-do to get going. As a conservative association that is concerned about accounts payable, direct deduction was a transition.” Falcioni says that after initial trepidation, operating with a CAPS account isn’t nearly as bad as the organization anticipated. “It’s much easier and streamlined. In the end, there’s less paperwork.” Publisher German Life finds that having a CAPS account is easier than cutting and mailing checks. Circulation manager, Matt Strickler, cites no longer having to worry about whether his mailed postage checks are delivered on time.

Another and typically more significant area of adjustment is scheduling. With co-mailing, mail files are processed further upstream, requiring publishers to supply their mail files to their printer 2-3 weeks earlier. While this creates an earlier cut-off for new subscribers, Strickler points out that these copies can be addressed with supplemental mailings. Our customers pointed out that the more challenging scheduling adjustment is on the editorial/production end. Publishers who co-mail agree to adhere to strict print production schedules in order to meet their subsequent co-mail pool schedules. Most publishers we talked with have pushed their editorial schedules back slightly to ensure they can meet their file “In Dates” without question. The exception here is bi-monthly or less frequent publications, which typically have enough time built into their schedules that meeting these deadlines may require little change.

… But Sometimes It Isn’t So Bad

The general consensus among our customers is that the challenges with co-mailing are surmountable and that there are even unexpected benefits.

One of the most significant – and daunting – drawbacks with co-mailing is that it adds time to your distribution cycle. Normally, when magazines leave the distribution docks of your printer, they are essentially entering the mail system. With co-mailing, your magazines leave the printing plant and go to a co-mail consolidation facility, where they are sorted with various other publications according to destination (the essence of co-mailing). This process can take up to 7 days. So if you add together the 1-2 days for your mail to get to the consolidation center and the 2-7 days it takes to sort the mail and get it on its way again, you’re adding on average about 5-7 days to your delivery cycle. Keep in mind this can be slightly offset by the fact that your mail moves faster once it actually enters the postal system because it’s then closer to its final destination.

Falcioni admitted to being extremely concerned about the length and unpredictability of this delivery delay—so much so that Mechanical Engineering pushed back their schedule enough to make up for the added days of distribution. In the end, Falcioni was pleasantly surprised: “The exact date of delivery is now more reliable.” He reports, “With drop shipping, I used to receive my own copy between the 29th and 3rd. Now, I receive it on the 27th or 28th for every issue.” Falcioni described their adjustment as a compromise: earlier delivery for readers but also an earlier cut-off date for editorial. Falcioni made the point that this editorial sacrifice—or alternatively accepting a later delivery date—may be more feasible for a publication that is bi-monthly or less frequent.   

Every Lane Press co-mailing customer we talked with was pleasantly surprised at the effect co-mailing has on the quality of their mail. That is, all publishers have seen a noticeable drop-off in the number of subscriber calls they receive about missing or damaged copies. This is most likely due to the fact that, with co-mailing, bundled mail bypasses bulk mail postal facilities and enters the postal stream at sectional facilities, closer to its final destination. There’s less touch, less potential for damage such as labels ripping off, and fewer places for magazines to–quite literally–slip through the cracks.

The Bottom Line

So, there are rules to abide by and sacrifices to make in order to co-mail – is it worth it? According to Strickler at German Life magazine, the answer is a definite yes. “The cost savings is significant for a publisher of our size.” German Life is a bi-monthly publication that sends approximately 25,000 mail copies per issue. They are saving an average of $1,600 per issue. Annually, that’s a savings of just under $10,000. Jane Mazzarella, Business Manager at Harvard Business School's HBS Alumni Bulletin, points out that while their savings with co-mail are modest, they are enough to help offset paper and postal price increases.

Keep in mind that savings potential varies not only from publication to publication, but from issue to issue. Savings is determined by how your unique mailing list combines with all the other publication mail lists in your given co-mail pool. The more magazines in a pool, the better potential for finer sortation levels, the higher the postage discounts.

So, buyer beware: Once you sign on the dotted line to co-mail, your due diligence isn’t done. Since your postage will vary from issue to issue, it’s vital for publishers to identify and track their savings on each issue. As Lisa Lincoln, Circulation Manager at Adirondack Life magazine, points out, the postage savings may not offset the expense of co-mailing—specifically the cost of freight from a printing plant to the nearest co-mail consolidation center. If the savings aren’t offsetting the expense, then you can inadvertently end up adding both time and cost to your distribution cycle. “If it doesn’t make sense,” says Lincoln, “then don’t do it.”

Is Co-mailing Right for You?

It’s certainly true that co-mailing isn’t right for every publication. It’s essentially a non-starter for publications that can’t add some time to their production and delivery schedules or ones that can’t commit to meeting their file “In Dates” no matter what. There are also restrictions on versions, polybagging, mailing class, and book size (trim size and thickness).

In general, publishers must meet the basic eligibility requirements below to qualify for co-mailing. Beyond these criteria, it is difficult to generalize about what types of publications can benefit the most from co-mailing. We can’t say, for instance, that quarterlies benefit more than monthlies or that publications with widely dispersed national distribution fare better than those with regionally dense distribution. This is because, as previously explained, the postal savings you gain from co-mailing is determined by how your mail file combines with the other mail files in a specific co-mail pool. The only way to get a sense of whether you would save money with co-mailing is to have Lane Press analyze your mail file. We run your mail file through a software program that combines that file with a typical co-mailing pool. The result is a surprisingly accurate forecast of how your publication would fare using co-mailing versus direct entry or drop shipping.

If you are interested in exploring co-mailing and your publication meets the criteria listed below, please contact your Lane Press customer service representative for further assistance. Your CSR will coordinate with our Logistics Team to provide you with a complete distribution analysis.

Basic Eligibility Requirements:
·    Files can reliably be submitted to printer on time
·    Can add some time to delivery cycle (5-7 days)
·    Mail as either Periodicals or Standard A
·    Are standard trim size (Periodicals can also be tabloid size)
·    Have low (<50%) carrier route presort

·    Have no more than 6 versions and meet minimum number of copies per version

While co-mailing requires adaptation and ongoing diligence, the benefits can be worthwhile for some small- and medium-size publishers. One thing is certain beyond doubt: Co-mail is worth exploring because, in today’s market, every penny counts. 

(Published September 2008)