The holidays are here and appeal time is upon us! It is a time to give thanks for motivated interns, self-adhesive stamps, and an office supply market flooded with envelope moistening products. Having participated in a fair number of mailings, from political campaigns to annual reports, I’ve learned that each organization has a unique approach to this tedious yet inescapable task. Below find what might be called a best practices guide to mailings – a collection of the most creative and most efficient approaches to getting those envelopes out to the post office and off of your end-of-the-year to-do list.
Mailings can be divided into three stages: stuffing, sealing, and stamping. To consolidate this process into two steps, you may want to consider looking into a postage machine, even if only for this time of year. A postage machine saves you the time and labor of sealing and stamping envelopes, and simple online postage refills save you running over to the post office when you run short of stamps. Another option for consolidating the process is to use postcards. This provides several advantages including reduced postage and elimination of the need to stuff and seal envelopes.
STUFFING
Stuffing the envelopes can be the most time-consuming stage of the entire mailing process. It involves several steps and, depending on the complexity of the insert, can require matching and even collation. Consider taking these steps to streamline your stuffing process:
A) Avoid including a personal greeting on the insert. This will eliminate the need to match up personalized letters with the appropriate insert and address label, saving what could amount to hours of work. It can also help you avoid the costly mistakes of using additional supplies or reprinting simply because one page of labels got out of order. Seriously consider whether the tradeoff in time and labor is worth including the recipient’s name in the correspondence.
B) Maintain an assembly line approach. It may sound obvious, but it does wonders for efficiency. For example, arrange the pages to be stuffed in the proper order first; create a pile of collated pages – step 1 done. (Even better, have your printer or copier do this for you.) Then fold all these pages, creating a new pile of folded papers – step 2 done. Finally, stuff all the envelopes at once, creating a third pile ready for sealing – stuffing stage complete! In addition to increased efficiency, this method provides a more precise way to gauge your progress through the mailing. Your project will also take up progressively less space, which can be critical in a busy office at year’s end.
SEALING
The big names in office supplies once experimented with flavored envelope glue – you might taste strawberries instead of paper, but you remain at risk for Susan Ross syndrome. Still, the type of envelope that you choose will have a significant impact on your mailing experience.
A) Choosing self-sealing envelopes: Self-sealing envelopes are considerably more expensive than traditional moisture-seal envelopes, but if you’re working alone or with a very small team, the tradeoff in time and trash disposal for all those peel backings could be well worth it.
B) Choosing moisture-seal envelopes: If you do opt for moisture-seal envelopes, you can of course purchase glue sticks or envelope moistener to do the job for you. But, do consider trying the following method to seal as many envelopes as quickly (and cost-effectively) as possible:
You will need a container of water and a sponge (a handful of paper towels will do in a pinch.) Dip the sponge in the water to moisten – the sponge should hold enough moisture for several applications. Take a handful of envelopes, unfolding them and aligning the flap edges so that the entire glue strip is exposed on each – this will yield a lovely envelope chevron pattern. Swipe the damp sponge along the full length of the glue strips, moistening them all at once. Then fold over the flaps one by one, starting with the top envelope. Experiment with the amount of envelopes until you find your stride – a handful of 7 will allow you to moisten more at once, but a handful of 4 will take less time to line up. You choose.
STAMPING
Most of us can remember a time when stamps came in perforated sheets that had to be painstakingly ripped apart, carefully moistened, and placed on the envelope with extreme caution – once that wet stamp hit the page it was stuck forever, unless you were willing to tear it off and waste the stamp. Now we can be grateful for the advent of self-adhesive stamps and need only adopt our method according to sheet or coil.
A) Working with coils of stamps: When working with stamp coils, the most important factor will be your dominant hand. If you are right-handed, you will want to begin working from the inside of the coil so that you need use only one hand to remove the stamp. If left-handed, simply begin from the outside of the coil to achieve the same purpose. Stack your envelopes in front of you, then peel the stamp from its backing and place it on the envelope with one smooth movement. Your other hand can be used to set the completed envelope in the box headed for the post office.
B) Working with sheets of stamps: Speed is the goal here and can be accomplished by revealing the sticky edge of several stamps at a time. Peel the backing down the sheet of stamps just far enough to reveal the edges of the top row; then you only need one hand to pull the stamps from the page and stick them onto the envelopes. Handedness is again important here – be sure to place the stamps on the envelope with the dominant hand, holding the sheet of stamps in the other.
The most important suggestion of all: make it a party. Very few of us truly enjoy the work of holiday mailings. Get everyone in your department involved – provide refreshments, put on some music, or start up a conversation. The work will go faster, and might even just be a little bit fun.
Hope your holidays are full of appeal…!
(*special thanks to FFF and TSA!*)
No comments:
Post a Comment