Envelope Stuffing Service

Every week you undoubtedly receive numerous direct mailers and other advertising materials in your post box. These companies rarely stuff or prepare these envelopes themselves, it usually falls upon small companies or work from home entrepreneurs like yourself to handle this rather mundane task. However what makes this job mundane also makes it really affordable to start and easy to run. If you’re looking for an affordable start-up that’s easy to run with great potential for expansion, read on.

Before The Start-Up Let’s Not Get Ahead Of Ourselves

When we said this is an easy to run business we weren’t joking! You’ll need a basic understanding of postal regulations and operations as well as the ability to actively market your own services.

The Start-Up

Before you start stuffing, invest in a letter folder and sealer. These two very affordable assets will help to speed up the stuffing process. Prepare a space in your home to sort envelopes, an office will make life easier but is by no means required. If you have children find a safe place to store your work.

Most services charge between 25c and 50c (USD) per envelope, do some research on local competition before deciding on your own rate. Don’t be tempted to charge a flat rate under any circumstances; this just opens the door for companies to ask special favours and abuse your services. During your first few jobs take careful note of how long it takes you to stuff the average envelope. This will allow you to work out just exactly how many jobs you can take on at one time. If you find yourself with more work than you can handle; its time to expand. There’s not much to envelope stuffing so finding employees shouldn’t be too hard.

Making It Work

Envelope stuffing is part of the direct mail industry. Expand your business to provide more than just envelope stuffing - offer to manage the entire direct mail process. Most direct mail services manage business’s client lists, purchase their envelopes and other packaging materials and may even offer design services. Companies will be far more interested in outsourcing their entire direct mail system than simply the envelope stuffing portion. Offering these services will also allow you to market your company as a direct mail service rather than an envelope stuffing service which can sound scammy.

Marketing

Find out which local companies use direct marketing mailers and actively market your services to them. Also consider taking out a small advertisement in local classifieds or business publications.

Don’t Forget

Beware of scams, the envelope stuffing scam is possibly the oldest work at home scam in the world. Companies request you send them a small amount of money for a start-up kit or further information - all you receive back is a letter on how to get paid for furthering their scam. Remember if it sounds too good to be true it usually is.

Companies rely on you to finish your jobs on time; always aim to meet your deadlines, a good reputation will be invaluable if you decide to hire employees and expand your service.