The super-cool fold this week is from Pantone Color Innovations. It’s a fresh twist on a standard size and format.

Short Fold Direct Mailer with Rotated Format:

Last week the Columbia Daily Tribune (Missouri) published an article  about Kelly Press Inc., a 78 year old commercial printing company that recognized that their print business was changing. Kelly Press responded by both investing in updated printing equipment (Kodak Nexpress 2100) and by diversifying well beyond print. It is a great tale that clearly illustrates the message that analysts from InfoTrends and NAPL have been shouting from the rooftops – the need for printers to transform themselves into “Marketing Services Providers.”

Lost in the dialogue about Marketing Services Providers (MSPs) is the transition from general commercial print to specialization, from ad hoc jobs to programs. While Kelly Press is a transformation success story, I wouldn’t call them an MSP- rather they became a specialized publisher, developed focused services for specific verticals (radio stations, college sports, etc.) and even purchased the rights to the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association for a period of time. Their diversification of services and focus on specific verticals has helped to drive print … and more specifically digital print.

I particularly like the final quote in the story. “For a while we’ve recognized that print is dying,” said Colin See. “So to just try to sell more printed stuff wasn’t a good long-term solution. But to try to incorporate print into what the world is becoming makes sense.”

So, when we hear terms like MSP or business communications service providers – let’s keep in mind that often the challenge is simply to move to strategically packaged services as Kelly Press did. In most of these cases, print is a core service and actually enhances the total offering.

This type of transformation story is playing out in many segments of the printing industry. For example, there is a heated discussion about the role of transaction documents incorporating marketing messages and whether this is a threat to direct mailers. The underlying discussion has focused on who has the capabilities to manage data and provide complex services to help address new applications. Managing data is often cited as the key to becoming a Marketing Services Provider. My question to the Digital Nirvana community is this:

Is “Marketing Services Provider” the right term for what today’s printers should aspire to be?

So, you’re one of the smart ones. Or one of the lucky ones . . . You’ve secured a big new client, you’ve got a three year contract, and the daily mail production volume actually turns out to be as much as they said it would be . . . sometimes more. You leased the latest and greatest high-speed inkjet imaging equipment with in-line finishing, and a couple roll-fed inserters, and they’re about 75% utilized by the work for this client. You’re meeting your SLAs, mostly, (there are days with big volume spikes), you’re making good money, and even getting paid for recycling the paper waste! Life is good.

You’re walking the production floor, smiling, remembering the intense, long hours and the crunch of getting the programming done to meet the client’s drop-dead start date – and then the next version came in, and then the next. The file formats were different, the documents were different, and your team just hunkered down, not sleeping much for about a month, working with the client on specs, coding, testing, proofing, and finally getting five versions into production.

As you walk, you take a look at the quality of the imaged rolls waiting to be loaded onto the inserters and are satisfied. You look around and see the paper waste in the gaylord containers for recycling. Wait – how many of those are there? You see the skids with the cores from the paper rolls for recycling – most have a couple inches or more of paper still on them. Holy cow! They’re everywhere!

You turn to the inkjet/finishing system and watch the operators thread 60+ feet of paper through it, which you are pretty sure you saw them do about fifteen minutes ago, and wonder – how good are things really – and how good COULD they be?

We see so many companies in which teams of people, having completed the hard work of getting their client’s complex projects up and running smoothly, heave a big sigh of relief and move on to the next project for the next client. Rarely is there the time or ability to plan and develop the most optimum, efficient production process out of the gate. But you can apply some disciplined methods for improvement post-implementation. Usually, there is a motivating factor, such as wanting to postpone additional capital investment.

For example, I recently worked with a client who had an ongoing group of projects, produced and mailed daily, that was growing and had volume spikes. The client wanted to ensure that they could support continued growth without adding equipment capacity. The daily production run was comprised of five separate variable data files, formatted for print and delivered to the print queue. A print operator would select a file to run on one of two high speed roll-fed two-color inkjet print devices. After printing, the rolls were moved to roll-fed inserters for finishing. The following baseline data was collected for the current state:

1. Threading a printer required sixty feet of paper
2. Set up time was just under one hour for each file in the print department
3. Additional set up time was required at the inserter to set up each print roll

After examining the processes and requirements for the printers and the inserters, my team determined that with minor programming and process changes the files could be combined/stacked in the print queue and run in one continuous run without set ups between them. Two banner sheets were programmed between each file to assure separation at inserting. The solution was tested and new procedures developed and staff trained.

As a part of the process review, testing was done to determine how closely the paper roll could consistently be run to the core, without adversely affecting printer and inserter quality and productivity. Based on this testing, new standards were set and the operators were retrained. Some paper inconsistency issues were identified and were subsequently addressed and resolved with the paper merchant. Paper consistency can have a huge impact on efficiency.

Following the initial testing, additional jobs were identified where similar or the same file separation conditions existed. Metrics were developed to continue to track the Key Performance Indicators, (KPI’s), and both hard cost and soft benefits.

The results were immediately visible:

1. Hard cost savings in terms of material, consumables, click charges, and labor costs in excess of $20,000 per month on the test job were documented.
2. Overall production cycle time was reduced.
3. On-time delivery was improved and;
4. An additional four to five hours of combined printer/inserter capacity were gained per week on just the initial test job!

Getting these results does require some effort – gathering and assessing baseline data, motivating a small team to identify and test possible process improvements, and measuring results of the changes made. But, with a committed and interested management, this can become a way of doing business, not an exception effort, and create an improvement culture through all levels of the company.

I’ve been told that I enjoy the process of reengineering communications way too much to be normal, but I’ve met my match in Trish Witkowski. Trish has taken her passion for a single aspect of communications – the fold – to a nearly obsessive level. She established a communinity of folding aficionados at www.FoldFactory.com where she posts a series of videos titled “The 60-second Super-cool Fold of the week” (soon to be seen here on The Digital Nirvana. )

But first, you have the opportunity to gain a deeper appreciation for Trish’s expertise and to learn why you should care about the art and science of the fold by viewing her recent webinar (with Sabine Lenz of PaperSpecs.com) on “Direct Mail Dynamics.”

View Direct Mail Dynamics Webinar

Happy Folding.

There is a lot of hype surrounding Personalized URLs these days, but what’s the reality behind the hype? Do these applications deliver on the promise? “Personalized URLs: Beyond the Hype,” the fourth in Heidi Tolliver-Nigro’s Marketer’s Primer Series, addresses this question.

Personalized URL applications have a wide variety of uses, including sales prospecting, customer surveying, event registrations, information dissemination, and obtaining customer and user feedback. But while these applications have generated a lot of success, they have generated a lot of disappointment, too—primarily because of a lack of realistic expectations.

This reports provides a no-nonsense look at the role of personalized URLs and 1:1 printing in increasing the effectiveness of companies’ marketing programs. It looks at key application categories, “best in class” case studies, lessons learned over time, and best practices for optimizing their use.

The report’s author argues that one of the reasons that many personalized URL applications have struggled is that personalized URLs (including PURLs, RURLs, and other -URLs) need to be seen as merely a vehicle for response. These campaigns must adhere to the best practices for all 1:1 (personalized) printing campaigns rather than relying on the personalized URL, itself, as the primary motivator of response.

The report includes analysis of nearly a decade of personalized URL case studies from around the industry, with a list of best practices drawn from common denominators among the most successful programs.  Notable were the use of multiple media to reinforce the message and the utilization of additional elements, such as over-sized postcards or lumpy mail, to drive response—even more than we tend to see in non-personalized URL 1:1 (personalization) programs.

For more information on this and the other Marketer’s Primer Series Reports, visit the Digital Printing Reports website. Other reports in the series include “Digital Printing: Transforming Business and Marketing Models,” “1:1 (Personalized Printing): Boosting Profits Through Relevance,” and “Web-to-Print: Transforming Document Management and Marketing Models.”

I’m used to looking at the case studies from digital press and personalization software suppliers for the marketing effectiveness of 1:1 printing, but as “green” continues to gather steam as a hot marketing angle, I’m starting to rethink how I position this information.

This morning, I repositioned a case study from AutoNation and DME that many in this industry may already be familiar with.

In this study, DME overhauled its 1:1 printing workflow to enable AutoNation to eliminate its need to inventory and warehouse pre-printed offset shells that were subsequently personalized using black-and-white overprinting. Using XMPie’s PersonalEffect software, DME changed its workflow so that each campaign is single project, even though each campaign involves multiple brands and dealers. The business rules for composing the individualized offers are programmed independent of the design. All elements become data-driven variable objects instead of static fields. Thus, instead of using pre-printed stock, AutoNation’s campaigns are now printed, as needed, using plain, unprinted paper. The results were impressive. Responses to its direct mail pieces went up 35%. Revenues were up 65%.

But in this environment — so hot for green — these may not end up being the most compelling results. Consider the “green” impact of this switch. AutoNation no longer must warehouse pre-printed stock for different dealerships and brands.

Consequently, it also saves …

• the carbon footprint and resources used to pre-print each set of shells
• the carbon footprint and cost of warehousing those shells
• the fuel costs of transporting them.

Click here for the permanent archive containing the full article.