Print Mail's Digital Links

More printers realize adding services that are logical extensions of their print offering, such as mailing, can quickly contribute to the bottom-line. Even more importantly, the move into mail can help strengthen the business relationship with customers, say printers, establishing a bond that is not easily shaken by low-ball pricing.

Mailing and fulfillment services now account for more than 7% of total annual sales of printers surveyed, according to a recent PIA/GATF study. (For comparison, bindery and finishing services account for about 15% of total sales, while database management represents less than 1%.) A survey at GAM's Website, graphicartsonline.com, finds 60% of respondents offer some kind of mailing services, with another 30% planning to do so in the near future.

Results from the PIA/GATF study cited above, entitled “Expanding the Print Market Space: Printers' Diversification into Ancillary Services,” are echoed in research from a Print Industries Market Information and Research Organization (PRIMIR) study, “Benchmarking Non-Print Revenues of Printing Companies.” Issued last year, it found some 8% of total dollars generated in the printing industry came from non-print services, including mailing management, kit fulfillment and logistics management. That figure, which translates to about $12.6 billion, is expected to account for 13% of industry revenues by 2010.

The percentages, however, do not tell the entire story. Non-print services reportedly leverage twice their revenue impact by augmenting print orders. “It's not these revenues I covet; it's the retention and acquisition of print business,” as one East Coast sheetfed printer describes his firm's mailing a strategy. The movement into mailing services is also deeply intertwined with the adoption of digital printing and variable-print technologies, and the explosion in Web-to-print offerings that help printers integrate print, list-processing and mailing services through digital storefronts established for their customers. “Mailing and fulfillment drives more digital print than anything else,” says print consultant and author C. Clint Bolte. Xerox reports that more than 1 billion trans-promo pages are now printed annually.

The growing attraction of mailing offerings is seen in the confluence of conferences touching on the subject, many with content aimed at printers. Last month the NAPL/Mailing & Fulfillment Service Assn. Conference was held in Napa Valley, near San Francisco. Mailcom convened in Atlantic City, NJ, on April 29-May 2. And the U.S. Postal Service holds its National Postal Forum, with many topics geared to printers, in Anaheim later this month.

None of this would matter if there weren't budget for buying mailings, and there is plenty. Despite postal rate hikes and erosion in some other media, U.S. marketers increased their direct-mail spending 5% last year, to $58.4 billion, says marketing consultancy Winterberry Group. The research group's annual white paper on vertical trends in direct marketing finds direct mail accounts for 30% of total direct-response ad spending. It accounts for all commercial communications sent through the mail—some 50% of all printing—and includes preparation, print/bind production and postage for postcards, catalogs and letters.

The Winterberry study buttressed Direct Group's decision to purchase the first Océ JetStream 2200 inkjet press, says Don McKenzie, CEO of the $100-million firm. Its New Jersey facility is one of the country's largest high-volume direct mail producers. Started up in April, the new high-speed printer is providing full color with variable data in a new mailing category, trigger mail.

Winterberry says direct mail continues to outpace most non-digital media and is expected to grow 5% annually through 2011, to $72.3 billion. Interpublic Group's Universal McCann media communications agency projects 2008 direct mail growth to be around 4.5%.

With the opportunities in mailing come risks. One of these centers around liability issues related to handling the personal data that is often involved in direct mail and transpromotional print efforts. In the past 18 months, for example, a former Chicago public school teacher sued All Printing & Graphics, Broadview, IL, and the Chicago Board of Education over the release of the Social Security Numbers (SSNs) of more than 1,700 employees. The printer mistook the personal data for a list of health care providers.

In a similar story, Wisconsin's State Department of Revenue mailed 115,000 tax booklets with recipients' SSNs printed on the mailing labels. Ripon Community Printers, Ripon, WI, paid $110,000 toward credit monitoring—while state taxpayers spent more than $600,000.

Even when printers take precautions, it's not always fail-safe. Last August, the SSNs of 445,000 retirees of the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) were inadvertently printed on brochures. A CalPERS employee had accidentally sent a disk containing the numbers to the printer. (The disk was only supposed to contain recipient names and addresses.) Despite safeguard software designed to detect SSNs and keep them from being printed, many of the numbers had leading zeroes that tripped up the computer program assigned to avoid such mishaps.

Another type of security breach is even more unsettling: inadvertent placement of one individual's private information into another recipient's envelope. A growing number of systems for verifying accuracy, or preventing mailing mismatches at the outset, are now available. Designed to ensure the right mail piece gets inserted into the right envelope, these automated technology advancements are helping to establish pin-point accuracy.

With the rise of variable-data print and the chances for errors come two ways to ensure that a mail piece gets married to the right envelope: Verify it electronically during the process or, a newer approach, manufacture inline the mailing components inline.

New solutions are available that provide mailroom operators with on-screen verification and sampling of documents, as well as with high-speed automated tracking and monitoring that can determine when any variance from the desired result has exceeded a limit and an item is now considered unacceptable.

“These technologies are not printer model or vendor specific, and can be used almost anywhere that you want to ensure that the product you are producing is meeting your standards,” says Mike Maselli, executive director of business management for Böwe Bell + Howell. “Having visibility and control of quality results can ensure that modifications are made immediately, and wasted cost and time is minimized.”

One example is the Buhrs BB 300 direct-mail inserter, which accurately matches names at 14,000 pieces per hour. With add-on software technology from U.K.-based partner Lake Image Systems, the inserter is very precise. Lake's IntegraVision product, based on a Windows XP platform, is available in area-scan camera, line scan camera and barcode scanner configurations. At drupa, Buhrs is introducing an even faster model, the BB 700 'smart' machine built on a servo platform. IntegraVision also is deployed on a Buskro inserter installed at direct mail printer Vertis Communications, Baltimore. With roots in bindery, mailing and plastic cards, Lake Image says it now is seeing growth in print.

A number of automated system for mailing operations are on view at drupa. Atlantic Zeiser Group, a provider of encoding systems for the label market, is now offering its inkjet technology to OEM partners for integration into third-party systems that can be used for direct-mail applications. Mabeg is presenting two Omega 36i with inspection cameras and two SmartCure 36i units at drupa (Hall 9, stand A21).

Also at drupa, Axode (Hall 14, stand A23) is demonstrating its Global Supervision Solution (GSS), which feature an error-free guarantee. The firm says it's the only solution on the market that allows a document's entire printing and mailing process to be monitored by camera in real time, ensuring that each letter is created and sent correctly. A remote access feature allows clients to verify the production process from virtually anywhere. Data is automatically transmitted in real time to the client's computer. Users include Pitney Bowes Management Services and DHL Global Mail. In Dusseldorf, Axode products are being presented on the stands of business partners such as Kodak and Nipson.

inTelmail offers the i_mail line of integrated, modular processing solutions. Its RVD (Read Verify Divert) stand-alone unit can scrutinize mail, at up to 70,000 sph, via a random look-up system to a reference match file—and kick out suspicious pieces.

Inline solutions, which integrate manufacture of the mail set and the envelope in one step, are also gaining adoption. The MegaSpirea MaiLiner 100 uses Dynamic Envelope Creation to create an envelope using the same blank roll of paper upon which the inside documents are printed. The machine diecuts, folds and glues inline, then adds the marketing message—saving money that would be spent on pre-manufactured, pre-ordered envelopes. It's also more secure and private than inserting, the company says.

Kern, Inc. offers the 515 EasyMailer to produce an individually created mailing with envelope. An 8.5×11´´ letter and corresponding envelope can be printed in color and with various images and text on the front and/or back side—in a single pass. The printed letter is integrated in the finished envelope, ready for the mailstream.

Earlier this month at the Mailcom show, inkjet/camera systems firm MCS, Inc. introduced an Intelligent Card Attacher/Printer System (ICAPS) for single-step production and personalization of plastic cards. Developed jointly with Pitney Bowes and high-speed card processor 509 Technologies, the device personalizes and affixes gift cards inline with matching letters. The three companies have integrated a product that replaces slow production methods involving multi-step processes and multiple vendors.

Production-speed inkjet, camera technology and magnetic-stripe encoding technology all combine in one system at production speeds of up to 15,000 per hour. ICAPS reads an optical code on a carrier piece and magnetically encodes and inkjet prints on a plastic card The personalization portion can be a name, dollar amount, offer code, etc.

Many retailers believe that gift cards are the promotional currency of the future. An increasing number are pushing the promotional envelope, actually utilizing gift cards to replace coupons. This is a logical step, MCS says, because gift cards have a much higher redemption rate and a well-established perceived value.

In the fulfillment arena, Software Marketing Associates pro-mail offers a comprehensive product, order and literature request system that provides flexible order-capture options, including customizable shopping carts, call center data entry and flexible order import abilities. It also features robust warehouse production tools, such as automatic sorting, segregating and batching transactions, designed to maximize efficiencies. Complex kit compositions also can be managed. Clients can receive e-mails confirming receipt and shipment of products, check shipping status of packages and know the exact content of all boxes shipped.

For integrated marketing efforts, InterlinkONE v. 8 allows printers, mailers and fulfillment companies to transition into offering marketing services. Its variable-data print component allows customers, such as Dome Printing, Sacramento, to cover all aspects of one-to-one marketing. It features tools to launch Personalized URL campaigns (similar to GAM's front cover this month) and e-mail blasts. Most importantly, because the tools are all in one product, each aspect of the effort can be measured and reported in one spot.

Nine month ago, printer Vertis Communications introduced Vertis MailTrail, a mail tracking and reporting system powered in cooperation with GrayHair Software. Driven by the U.S. Postal Service's next-generation Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB), it provides marketers the ability to trace a direct mail campaign's journey through the mail stream, from a package's initial entry to its projected in-home delivery date.

Precision Track, from trackmymail.com, uses the power of IMB technology to track every piece of mail to its unique destination, even when there are multiple recipients at a single address. Every piece has its own unique tracking number—a “license plate” that identifies it.

The IMB combines a tracking number and routing code into a single barcode. Precision Track uses the IMB, so only one barcode needs to be printed, saving precious “real estate” on customers' mail pieces, as well as reducing any negative impact on response rate that may come from an additional barcode.