“It is not the strongest or most intelligent species that survive, but the ones who are most willing to adapt.”  ~Charles Darwin

I like this quote because it removes the idea that survival and success are not based on natural selection, but are based on intelligence and strategy and looking at how to adapt for future circumstances – an idea that seems especially relevant for the print industry today. At one time in history, we could have said that “print changed the world” and most would agree. But recent technological innovations, shifts towards digital communications and away from paper communications, have many printers working to keep up with the rapidly transforming industry. I suspect this is where Darwin’s idea of adaptation comes into play. Printers need to anticipate the future and prepare themselves accordingly. The same way of doing business will not stand, but you don’t need me to tell you this.

Lucky for printers, they don’t have to anticipate the future on their own. A group of young, bright, and well-educated students from RIT have already done the heavy lifting. Together they researched, wrote, and published a book entitled “Print changed the world – now the world is changing print.” They imagine the print industry landscape all the way to 2022 and address a number of sectors including books, packaging, signage, technical documents, direct mail, and more.

Here are the cliff notes…

Good News for:

• Mobile devices which enable digital distribution
• Packaging
• Industrial printing
• Signage

Bad News for:

• The Postal Service
• Circulars and inserts
• Periodicals

Aside from the above, there are a number of categories in which the future is mixed – certain aspects will decline while some will rise. For example, authors suspect that self-publishing and yearbook printing will be the primary mode of book printing while traditional novels and textbooks will decline. The Security sector is another mixed bag.

If you read my last blog post, you’ll see that some predictions and research contradict what is in this report. I suppose no one owns a crystal ball so predicting the future is never easy. But nonetheless, it’s best to be informed and anticipate how expected trends will impact your business. So check out the full booklet here! (Made available by Printing Impressions)

As a utility consumer, I have needs. I need to be asked how I’m doing. I need to feel needed. I need to be understood. I desire warmth from more than just my HVAC unit.

I want to know where my money is going and why I owe as much as I do. Once I come to terms with the hard fact that I indeed do need to part with my hard-earned money, I want it to be as convenient and easy to decipher as possible. I want to be able to check my bill from my phone or computer and have the option to pay from my mobile phone.

I don’t want to call a customer service line, and I don’t want to navigate through a series of voice prompts. Parting with my hard earned money isn’t an intrinsically fun thing to do, so when I have an experience with my utility company, I’m already on the defensive. I need my utility company to open a communication with me, not just a one-way message. I don’t at all mind the utility company sharing a third-party deal with me, as long as it applies to me, and isn’t a hassle to read through.

What I can’t deal with is poor design that lacks graphics to clarify my statement. I’m a visual learner, so I need to see where my money is going. I want to see the crucial information front and center. If I have to call customer service, I want to easily find my account number and all other pertinent information in one place. I want an e-statement that looks like my bill. I find it helpful to see why I’m using so much energy, and I like to see if I was demonstrated better or worse habits in the prior year (or better than my neighbors!). I want to see actual meter readings and I want to know how to lower my consumption. I also don’t like getting a water bill, a sewer bill and a waste collection bill separately, when all three are paid with the same invoice!

Also, I need reminders. A printed bill in the mail is a great reminder, but for some bills, I prefer e-presentment and mobile solutions. When I use e-statements, it really helps to get a reminder in my email or a text to my phone. If there’s one thing I hate more than having to pay bills, is paying late fees. A simple reminder and an easy to use payment portal help me make late fees a thing of the past. I have some bills on autopay from my bank, some I pay monthly with my credit card and some I send a check for- so I count on my utility provider to make it easy on me with a reminder. The worst is getting hassled by customer service or risking a service interruption from a late payment when literally, “The check is in the mail!” Please track your remittance efforts as well, and save us all some time!

I understand that some providers have an outdated legacy system in place, but that is no excuse to not get with the times. Work with a provider to transform your legacy system into a more modern system, and begin a statement archival system for easy access in the future. Offer me online and offline options for my statement. Offer an electronic bill pay system.

Is that too much to ask?

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to print

The statements and bills of outrageous usage,

Or to take online against a sea of logins,

And by accepting digital mailboxes? To print: to email;

Much more!

Ah, Shakespeare and his affinity for transactional documents. Well documented in his masterpieces, such as “A Midsummer Night’s Data” and “Much Ado about Printing,” Shakespeare is not the only one that noticed a shifting landscape from print-only transactional documents to online documents. Well, which one is better? To print or not to print?

As you might have guessed, the answer is not a simple one. I recently read an article in the Digital Nirvana blog describing the online shift for statements. To quote the article: “According to a massive 2011 InfoTrends study, the shift is taking place slower than anticipated. In fact, only 11% of American consumers receive their bills electronically.” Whereas, the perceived shift to electronic communications seemed prevalent (at least to me), consumers still crave printed materials, for reference purposes and for security.

Why print?

First and foremost, consumer preference leans towards the printed piece. In Epsilon’s consumer preference survey, direct mail was the channel of choice for health information, insurance information, and financial services statements. 62% of Americans enjoyed checking the mailbox daily. Print technology is simply making the printed piece even more engaging, and consumers also expressed that printed mail is easier to reference at a later date. Digital Print technology has evolved in such a way to take statements and personalize them to levels never before thought possible. Utility statements can show individualized usage charts and suggestions based on energy consumption. 401k mailing and insurance statements can pair with information databases to show full color representations of distribution and growth, as well as market trends. These personalization options will continue to shift consumer preference towards print, and any business can outsource the data storage, printing and mailing responsibilities to a qualified provider.

Why online?

According to the same Channel Preference study, Mobile device users were 40-50% more likely to prefer email and online communications, respectively, than non-users. This fact is important to note in an increasingly connected and mobile world. Not only are statements shifting to online options, but mobile apps for statements and utilities are surfacing, as well. Younger generations are being raised in an online world, and when they become billpayers and recipients of medical statements and 401k breakouts, they will expect them to be digital communications. The social media component very well might eventually pair with transactional documents in the future, and digital mailboxes will provide a level of security to appease those concerned about online threats.

So to print or not?

Both. The answer lies in determining and exercising your client preferences. Finding out whether your customer prefers electronic presentment is the first step in statement redesign and billing preference. Whereas mobile is convenient, the printed piece offers great levels of personalization, color, and is tactile. For a long time to come, the solution lies in combining the printed world and the online world into an overarching multichannel strategy. Preparing your statements for both online and printed communications will allow the customer to choose how and when they transition between mediums and will help you answer the question “To print or not to print?”

At a Canon Oce webinar on January 23, InfoTrends Group Director Barbara Pellow presented “2013 Top 10 Trends for the Printing Industry.”

1. Digital Color is King. All bets are on digital color printing. InfoTrends research forecasts an increase from $29.6 to $39.5 billion in the retail value of  U.S. digital color from 2011 through 2016.

2. Digital Wide Format Goes Mainstream. Digital wide format printing evolves into an key component of companies’ marketing strategies, and will continue its 7% CAGR from 2011 through 2016.

3. Inkjet Accelerates Migration from Offset to Digital. New inkjet solutions offer greater speed, quality, substrate flexibility, and finishing –  as well as more  competitive pricing. Major inkjet growth expected from books, direct mail, transpromo and brochure printing.

4. Enhanced Substrates Drive Digital. Digital presses support new, high margin substrates: rugged synthetics; pressure sensitive stocks; specialty media; pre-scored, ready-to-print dimensional stock; new photobook media, and others.

5. Web-to-Print Manages Marketing Supply Chains. Companies spend billions for producing, shipping, storing, and handling literature. PSPs will optimize the marketing supply chain  – offering online print-on-demand collateral catalogues.

6. Content Reigns. Fifty-four percent of B2B firms increase spending on content marketing. PSP’s cultivate “thought leadership” offering content that educates, entertains and motivates.

7. Hyper-Personalization Drives Digital Print. 2013 is the “Year of Hyper-Personalization” – when marketing materials address more relevant, compelling needs of the consumer. Examples: mailers with personalized map directions and printed materials with PURLs linked to pre-approved applications.

8. Trigger-Based Marketing Meets Customer Preferences. Consumers expect real-time, two-way communications, through mobile devices, websites, and social media. PSPs customers will adopt marketing automation technology, e.g., from Market Sprocket, Hubspot, Orange Soda and Hootsuite.

9. Mobile Marketing Changes Communications. PSPs add mobile marketing solutions to the portfolio: mobile codes printed on packaging, POS, and brochures;  “opt-in mobile messaging” to mobile devices; Augmented Reality – digital graphics coded onto physical objects – revealing information or entertainment via mobile devices.

10. Direct Mail and Social Media Converge. PSPs support customers with social media marketing tools from Ducky, Hootsuite, SpreadFast, and others. Campaigns integrating direct mail with social media lift responses for both.

Property and Casualty (P&C) Insurance carriers are in the business of assessing risk; risk of theft, damage, injury, professional malpractice and catastrophe as well as investment risk. They make their money by laying odds on the likelihood that things will go sideways for their customers and that they will earn enough money by investing the pool of premium dollars to pay out on the bet if things do. Lately it seems that climate change is blowing up all the models for setting the odds of a natural disaster and insurers are dealing with defining and delineating coverage for new threats like cyber-terrorism that have completely changed the game.

The core systems most insurers have in place are woefully inadequate to handle the scope and pace of this new insurance game. In order to keep up, companies have built add-on modules and work-arounds to their core systems, often relying on Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access “Band-Aids” to keep business moving. Many carriers that have upgraded their core systems did it on a “go-forward” basis leaving existing business on the old policy administration or claims system and writing new business on the new platform. At some companies this has happened more than once and there are now several “core” systems in production for different lines of business. All of the Band-Aids, work-arounds and go-forward solutions have left data scattered in multiple repositories just when carriers need data in one place more than ever.

In order to adequately assess risk, insurance carriers need large amounts of policy, claims, fraud and customer demographic data all in one place so that they can use risk modeling and data analytics to determine which types of risk are profitable to insure.  According to Accenture’s  2012 North American Claims Investment Survey, 54% of P&C insurers have core systems that are more than five years old, 66% say their claims systems are not optimized to collect and analyze data and 78% regard their capabilities inadequate to manage new forms and levels of risk, such as those presented by cybercrime, terrorism and increasingly frequent and severe natural catastrophes. So, after years of avoiding the disruption, expense and well – risk of a major core systems upgrade many companies have realized that they just can’t avoid taking the leap. A small study of 37 insurance carriers by Novarica indicated that 25 percent of large P&C insurers and more than 40 percent of midsize carriers were in the middle of converting their policy administration systems or planning to start a conversion at the end of 2011.

Keep in mind that the typical core systems upgrade will take from an incredibly fast eighteen months to a more typical three years plus to complete, depending on the number of undocumented work-arounds that need to be incorporated into the system and the level of data conversion to be completed. This means that a large percentage of the industry is either planning a core system upgrade or in the midst of completing one. And what comes out of these systems you ask? Documents, lots and lots of documents: quotes, policies, premium invoices, notices, claims reports, payments and more.

Opportunities abound for reducing the costs of producing documents in parallel with core systems conversion. Bringing systems together increases the opportunity for postal optimization, targeting analytics and improvements to the design of the documents themselves. The core systems upgrades have a larger implication as well; they enable insurers to develop more segmented and personalized products to appeal to different age, risk, ethnic and geographic groups of consumers. Direct marketing and agency marketing support is becoming more tailored and personalized as well with multi-touch, multi-channel and multi-language campaigns hitting the paper, airwaves and cyberspace simultaneously.

P&C Insurers are expected to spend an average of 17.5 million on Claims System upgrades alone. This seems like a pretty substantial number until you consider that the top 16 P&C insurers spend an average of $315 million on advertising each. GEICO alone spent over $993 million on advertising in 2011. This is not counting direct marketing spend – P&C Affinity Mail alone exceeded 500 million mailings in 2011 according to Mintel Comperemedia.

Savvy service providers are positioning themselves to help insures take advantage of newly upgraded systems and a wealth of new data to improve their customer experience throughout the insurance lifecycle. With their plates full to overflowing with core systems conversion initiatives, insurers need help to ensure that the tangible representation of their value to consumers – namely insurance documents – are not put at risk by the very projects intended to reduce risk. Now is the time to show insurers how to redirect some of those advertising dollars toward investments in customer experience and cross-sell using low-risk, high-reward solutions like direct mail, statement marketing and personalized collateral in tandem with QR codes and other calls to action that drive social media engagement and leverage consumers interest in mobile insurance applications. If your company isn’t positioned to help them, maybe you should be looking at some core systems upgrades too.

Elizabeth Gooding is the President of Gooding Communications Group and the Editor of InsightForums.com. She covers business communications trends in highly regulated industries such as insurance, financial services, healthcare and telecommunications.

It should come as no surprise that more and more people are shifting their once offline activities to online activities. This is true for things like shopping, reading newspapers, keeping in touch with friends and family. In fact, you are even reading you are even checking on your industry virtually by reading this online blog. This trend has numerous meanings for the printing industry which affects book printing, magazine printing, creating marketing communications, and… printed bills and statements. Scary stuff for the printing industry! But, is this shift actually as prevalent as we think it is?

According to a massive 2011 InfoTrends study, the shift is taking place slower than anticipated. In fact, only 11% of American consumers receive their bills electronically. While there is a push on the part of billers to move billing and payments online, the vast majority of customers still prefer a printed statement. That is the good news for printers. However, younger generations between the ages of 18-24 seem to have adapted most to online billing and payments, which may suggest that future generations will do the same.

What does this mean for printers? It means that they don’t need to panic yet. But they do need to keep an eye on the future and whether or not this trend of online activity continues to shift. In all likeliness, it will. Unless printers can come up with creative reasons why the printed piece is more powerful. With the increases in variable data printing capabilities, printed statements can act as a personal and impactful touch point with customers that the online experience may not fully provide.  A printed statement can be an opportunity to inform, educate, and promote. This is especially important when considering that, according to InfoTrends, printed statements are still the best way to cut through the clutter of communications.

So don’t give up on the printed statement! Think of it as a challenge to capture emerging generations. Could this be a new resolution for 2013??

Graph Expo 2012 has officially begun. Months of preparation on the part of exhibitors has paid off to create a lively and stimulating environment. I’m always amazed at how exhibitors transform an enormous hall into a series of inviting showcases. As usual, exhibitors compete with each other to drive traffic to their booths.

Stages are big this year. I remember two years ago when Xerox had the biggest stage. But this year, Océ /Canon and HP clearly take the prize. HP has an impressive stage set up that delivers engaging sales pitches on steroids. But if you are looking for a more enlightening experience, be sure to stop by the Canon Live Theater where Canon and Océ partnered with WhatTheyThink to host informative sessions throughout the show. Topics will include: Affordable Sustainability, Supply Chain Optimization, the Changing Face of Publishing, and What to look for in a business partner. I caught today’s first session on Digital Packaging Trends which featured a real customer speaking about his operations and how digital printing and print-on-demand allowed him to keep up with industry change and manage his printed inventories better. The list of live sessions can be found here including a link to watch everything streaming live. Xerox does have a new idea this year – improv session. I’ll have to check one out Monday. As I walked around the show floor more, I noticed numerous other presentations and mini-stages set up… so it certainly is a popular way to reach show attendees!

Like every other year, posters are also quite popular this year, as evidenced by the crowds of people walking around with poster bags. The leading poster providers seem to be Komori, KBA, and Scodix. Gunther smartly realized that so many people walk around carrying their loot and decided to brand wheeling storage units that people can cart with them. Free stuff galore!

Judging from Day 1, there are a few hot topics this year that numerous exhibitors are demonstrating their capabilities in. Inkjet Printing is big this year and is being covered by live sessions on both the Océ/Canon stage and on the HP stage. Automation and software seem to also be a popular topics as print providers today are striving for more streamlined end-to-end solutions. We’re talking automation at the beginning (with feeders) and automation at the end (like envelope inserting). Print-on-demand is yet another key topic. In-RoomPlus described today in the Digital Packaging Trends session at Canon Live Theater how they are able to quickly reprint catalogs as their prices change and how they can print small batches of product mock-ups to use as aids with customers during the sales process. Print-on-demand is so big now in the publishing world that Océ will help launch Daydream Alchemy Press – a publisher inspired by bringing projects to life using today’s print technologies – during Graph Expo.

All in all, there is a lot to see and do at Graph Expo 2012. It will surely be a busy, yet exciting, few days!

It’s hard to believe that I’m finally at the age when I can say, “I remember when. . .” Just like those “old codgers” who used to remember technologies and processes so foreign to me back in the early 90s as a young twenty-four-year-old, wet-behind-the-ears editor of Printing News for whom digital printing technology was no big deal because, well, didn’t we always have computers?

On the cover of one of my first issues of Printing News was my first disaster. It was back when (then) Indigo E-Prints were only sold in packs — I mean pairs — and the first pair was being installed at a facility in Manhattan. There in the headline, in 36-point type or whatever we were using at the time, I called them MAN Rolands.

Anyway, let’s not talk about that. I began covering digital production technologies that day and spent a lot of time interviewing printers and listening to accolades and complaints and walking trade shows in shoes that were comfortable but didn’t match my clothes.

It’s funny how certain things stand out to you, and after covering digital production for however many years, there was one product — a simple product — that stood out to me and still does today.

It was at a time when the quality of toner-based production was still rapidly evolving and graphic designers were still suspicious and critical, and rightfully so. It was a scoring machine designed specifically for toner-based presses. By scoring the folds first, it vastly minimized the classic issue at the time, cracking across the fold. I don’t know why it sticks out to me as being so important, but for some reason, of all the technologies I covered in those Printing News years, it does.

So here’s my Friday question, and I’d really like some input on this from Digital Nirvana readers. Is there a technology like that for 1:1 printing? Something that, to you, stands out as being a “critical turning point” in the area of workflow, productivity, inspection, data management, cross-channel integration, or anything else?

Tell me a story, give me a memory. If you had to pick one critical, turning point technology that you feel fundamentally changed (or is changing) this market, I want to know what stands out to you.

After all, I told you about the “MAN Rolands.” You owe it to me.

As I regularly share with employees there are two main ways I think about this question. First is being a good corporate citizen and recognize that we have a responsibility to secure the data we are entrusted with to protect the privacy of individuals. According to ITRC more than 35 million data records were compromised in corporate and government data breaches in 2008. Considering that number is 3 years old I’m sure it’s growing so our focus needs to be “do no harm.” Each of us wants those that have our personal data to protect it and we need to give others that same respect. The second consideration is core in building a strong, healthy business in today’s information based world. It’s a matter of “Trust”. We work hard every day to continue to earn our customers’ trust and in this, as well as many industries, our ability to keep our customers’ data secure is one of those “make it or break it” triggers. So it can’t be an annoyance, overhead, or an afterthought…it must be part of the business as much as quality control, hitting mail dates, or even invoicing.

So what’s the point of this blog…it’s important that we all keep the ‘why’ in mind as it’s the ‘why’ that ensures all the procedures, hardware, and people come together to achieve the goal of protecting data.

Special thanks to Sourcelink for this post. Check out their blog here.

No matter how you dress it up, a printer is a printer. Most printers would say that it is their price and customer service that will set them apart. If everyone has the same recipe for setting themselves apart, how much difference is there?

Becoming a marketing services provider takes some time, and there are some non-negotiable steps along the way to make the transformation complete. First, it is necessary for the online presence of the printer to be inviting, friendly, easy to use, interactive, and functional. The ability for your customers to order online is an important facet of the printer’s transformation. Customers should be able to upload mailing lists using the printer as an email service provider. They should also be able to access and download information to be distributed or printed in small quantities.

But having an online store does not automatically make you a marketing services provider. The printer has to examine cross-media marketing. As I state in the book, cross-media marketing is, “a form of cross-promotion in which promotional companies commit to surpassing the traditional advertisements and decide to include extra appeals for their offered products. The material can be communicated by any type of mass media such as e-mails, letters, web pages, or other recruiting sources.”

So you have become cross-promotional and web-friendly. Now you need to execute some campaigns. You are looking to drive traffic to a retail store, whether that store is brick and mortar or digital, and increase sales. There are steps that can be taken to ensure a successful campaign. Create postcards with personalized URL’s or QR codes to attract the attention of potential customers. 80% of all printed material ends up in the mail, and who knows how much of that immediately ends up in the trash. So personalizing gives your efforts a much higher chance to be received than a standardized mailer. Once the recipient accesses the URL, have them confirm some information to expand and provide accuracy to your database. Then drive them to either take a survey or claim their special offer that you advertised on the mailer. After a couple weeks, follow up with non-responders. When customers do come into the store in response to a direct marketing campaign, track that information to measure the effectiveness. If it’s not effective, go back to the drawing board. This should hopefully all lead to increased profits, data on marketing campaign strategies, and customer contact information. All of this lends itself to one of the most important ideas in marketing: return on investment (ROI).

Data is everything. Make sure you aggregate a solid database to help you in your marketing efforts. The best database is one you create yourself. The most relevant information to your business is only known by your business. A list provider can only be so specific to your target audience.

One more big aspect of this chapter is about making print interactive. I mentioned QR codes earlier; they are the best way to integrate new media into your printed efforts. They are two-dimensional barcodes that can be scanned by a smartphone, such as an iPhone or Android. Once scanned, they bring the user to a mobile website or landing page, creating an interactive experience for the customer. This mobile page will be stored in the phone for additional access later on, which means the proper information that you want read will be in the palm of the target audience’s hand.

The groundwork is being laid for the printer to become a full-fledged marketing services provider. In the next installment, we will talk about getting down to fundamentals to really complete the transformation.

To learn more about my book, “Business Transformation: A New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry”, visit my book’s website.

By Liz Swanson

There’s no question that today’s consumer is overwhelmed by the amount of marketing messages they encounter. Every day, they come across thousands of emails, direct mail pieces, advertisements, web banners, texts, and so on. They’ve almost become numb to the selling, which means that marketers have to find new and creative ways to break through the white noise.

Unfortunately in the quest to be THE message that is heard on any given day, sometimes a marketer will go a little too far–and enters the dark side of direct mail marketing. The message is heard for all the wrong reasons, leaving the consumer confused, angry or manipulated.

Recently, Boston.com posted an article about a direct mail campaign that went out to an unknown number of National Grid customers from HomeServe USA, an insurance company that sells coverage for furnace and plumbing repairs.

The intention of the mailing was win back former customers and have them reactivate their insurance coverage with HomeServe USA. Instead, many of the recipients thought they had received a bill from National Grid. The direct mail piece contained National Grid’s logo, had a design lay-out similar to a bill with an amount due, and the warning that it was “Payable Upon Receipt.” Not until the fine print on the second page was HomeServe USA referenced.

Just read the comments to the article to get a sense of how duped some customers felt. While it’s true that they had National Grid’s permission to use its logo and name, HomeServe USA should have been more upfront with their audience about the intention of the mailing.

The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office is now investigating the complaints about the mailing, meaning HomeServe USA could be facing criminal charge for deceptive marketing practices.

Yes, consumers should read their mail before blindly sending money to a company. BUT with effective direct marketing, the message and call-to-action should be crystal clear to the recipient. It’s our job as marketers not to confuse or deceive our audience because once we do, we lose trust.

___________________________________________________________________

Elizabeth Swanson is a Marketing Services Specialist with Iron Mountain

By Andy Gerry

I work at a company that is heavily focused on the online user experience for consumer and corporate identity risk management services – and I’m also a print guy. You might think that print wouldn’t be that important of a competency for us, but you would be wrong. Intersections Inc.  is recognized as the preferred partner of major financial institutions providing custom identity management solutions. Clients leverage Intersections’ identity management solutions, offered under their own privately branded labels.

Private labeling. Branding. Corporate Identity– –just a few reasons print is important.

Supporting our customers’ unique brands online is relatively straight forward; doing the same in print is more complex and expensive.  While many of our customers are serviced online for monitoring, alerts and extensive drill-down reports, the majority of our customers still prefer printed fulfillment kits.   

Each customer who successfully enrolls in one of our credit and identity risk management services, either through one of our corporate partners or directly with Intersections, is sent a printed guide for using the services. It is a welcome kit, a user guide, and almost always contains their personal credit data and scores.  This welcome kit sets the tone for the quality of the service that they have enrolled in.

In the past, Intersections created these guides by matching offset printed covers with dynamically produced booklet content. The covers were on heavy, die-cut stock in full color and the booklets were dynamically generated using Group1’s DOC1 and printed in black and white on an IBM 4100 with near-line booklet maker.  While the content was informative and the covers were produced using our clients’ brand colors, the inside didn’t offer a customer experience that was comparable to what Intersections delivers online. For those customers who preferred print to online, there was a tangible lack of color and brand palate inside the guide.

We are always trying to deliver greater flexibility and value to our direct clients – the financial institutions who private label our products – as well as the end consumers of those products. By early 2009 we were convinced that going to a dynamic, full-color environment was the way to remain the leader in our industry. After an exhaustive evaluation of technologies on the market, considering both toner and inkjet solutions from a variety of manufacturers, in 2009 we selected the Océ JetStream 1000 system for printing and GMC PrintNet to compose the documents.

The redesign, reengineering and redeployment of our guides and other documents on the new platform has been tremendously successful. Not only can we support dynamic branding with ease, but we can use color dynamically to highlight key information for consumers and draw their attention to personalized information, much the same way that we do online.  This is not to gloss over the complexity and the hard work it took to architect a high integrity solution that supports multiple partners in a true white paper environment.  It took longer than originally scoped and we learned many lessons on the way.

The good news is that originally we knew we needed two engines for redundancy and failover, but were unsure if enough of our clients would be willing to adopt color to warrant the two engines.  The best case has happened and by the end of the year the majority of our materials will now be printed in full on demand color in our new environment.  Along the way we’ve eliminated the risk of managing preprinted inventories, eliminated the matching process and are able to deliver a superior product to clients and our end customers in a very cost-effective way. Making the printed experience consistent with the online experience – priceless!

Since the conversion to full color, Intersections’ financial services product was rated “Best in Class” by Javelin Strategy & Research (September 2010) and we were ranked among the 500 Top Technology Innovators Across America (2010 InformationWeek 500, September 2010). I’d like to think that us print guys (and gals) had something to do with that!

Last week, I attended the 2011 Xplor International Conference & Vendor Forum, which hosted a number of educational sessions on transactional documents, such as bills and statements, and the infrastructure that enables output and delivery of these mission-critical applications. Not only do these types of documents need to reach 100% of recipients consistently every cycle; many contain sensitive information about each recipient like credit card transactions, investment performance, utility usage, and much more. Considering the applications that are discussed at Xplor, it was no surprise that the recent data breach by database and e-mail marketing firm Epsilon came up in the discussion mix a number of times throughout the conference.

You may have heard about the Epsilon breach through the news, or you may have received an e-mail from one of the major brands affected by the breach like the ones here (courtesy of TDN editor Elizabeth Gooding; click to enlarge):

Depending on peoples’ relationships with these brands, they may have received anywhere from one to six or more of these types of e-mails about the information breach. Those brands affected include some of the biggest in the world, including Citigroup, Chase, Ritz-Carlton, TiVo, and more. In terms of the information that was accessed by attackers, it was limited to names and e-mail addresses associated with those brands. Of course, that’s just enough information to be dangerous for the attackers and whatever intentions they have with use of that data. For the affected, be on the lookout for suspicious-looking e-mails well into the future trying to collect additional information to further their efforts in malicious activity. According to a recent report, Epsilon and its parent company, Alliance Data Systems, face over $100 million in costs and lost sales due to the breach.

Epsilon is not the only service provider that has faced data security troubles in recent years. In December 2010, another e-mail marketing provider, Silverpop Systems, faced a significant data breach and made away with similar details like names, e-mail addresses, and even birth dates from customers linked to brands such as McDonald’s. A few years back, attackers obtained credit card information for over 90 million accounts from retailer TJX Corporation due to weak security standards implemented at their TJ Maxx stores. That breach ended up costing the company over $160 million.

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, these types of customer data breaches have a series of negative consequences that go beyond having sensitive information get into the wrong hands:

• Consumers are more susceptible to disguised attacks that collect their information for further misdeeds.
• Brands themselves lose credibility with customers for the misuse of their data.
• Companies of all sizes lose faith and trust in using third-party service providers, including marketing service providers and cloud-based services.
• The federal government is prompted to take a much closer look at data security practices, as well data-driven marketing applications. Expect tighter regulations in the future.

As print service providers across the industry continue to offer more personalized marketing services, they are becoming responsible for their clients’ customer data to help execute those campaigns. Furthermore, to execute cross-media campaigns, many providers are leveraging hosted, third-party solutions that retain customer data. Now that customer data breaches are grabbing headlines again, service providers need to be prepared to answer questions about how data is used in applications, who has access to it, how and where it is stored, and what type of security is protecting that data.

Now would be as good a time as any to do a thorough audit of your company’s own data security practices. If you don’t have any security practices but are handling your clients’ customer data, that should raise many red flags. Even if you don’t deal with the world’s major brands, clients of all sizes from all markets expect their data to be protected when in the hands of a third party. In addition, talk with your vendors and partners about the types of data security that they offer (vendors and partners: you also better have a good answer to those asking questions).

Building trust with clients regarding the use of data is often be a long process, but can end up with great relationships, applications, and results when executed well. That trust can be destroyed in a nanosecond if data is not stored and managed securely, and can end up costing companies big time. In light of these recent breaches, take the time to audit your practices and reassure your clients that their information is being handled in a sound, secure way.

I have to admit that I’m becoming a true believer in the benefits of full-color white paper solutions. This is somewhat surprising since I’ve often been the person saying “black and white is good enough” for many of my client’s applications. (I made money designing those nifty paper stocks!) But, I’ve been watching inkjet technology evolve for some time and have been increasingly impressed with the advances in flexibility, control of ink droplet size, paper handling, power consumption and workflow from a variety of manufacturers. The tipping point has been the opportunity to see an increasing number of solutions in production.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a Press Go webinar with DST Output on the opportunities and challenges involved with adding full color capabilities to a black and white operation.  DSTO has the distinction of operating the largest digital full color print factory in the world (I’ve been to their El Dorado Hills site and it is impressive). DSTO shared details on several case studies where their clients had achieved significant savings by going to a white paper solution. Key savings areas were:

• Reduction in postal costs by consolidating jobs into a single run and thereby increasing the number of mail pieces that qualify for the maximum postal discounts.
• Reduction in storage and management of multiple paper stocks and selective inserts
• Elimination of separate direct mail pieces to existing customers (replacement with full page, dynamic in statement promotions). In many cases, clients didn’t just save money – they made money.

In addition to the savings that accrue to the customer, DSTO drove down their own costs as well. They reduced costs associated with inventory management, paper changes and improved inserter efficiency. At the same time, they were able to reduce turn times and improve quality metrics. DSTO estimated that by going with a full color, white paper in solution that also supported MICR, they were able to produce two to three times the volume with half the warehouse space and seventy-five percent less staff.

These results are pretty compelling but they didn’t come without some challenges, for example:

• Getting your customers to give up the preprinted stock (and check stock) for a standardized plain stock. You won’t get the benefits of a white paper solution without the white paper.
• Training operations staff – you need to have operators that understand the loose-web press environment but think like a transaction printer in terms of factory controls and post-processing.
• Training customers – document design, file handling and proofing are all different in the color environment and setting expectations early will make your transition – and your customers’ – smoother.
• Estimating for full color inkjet solutions is tricky business and needs to be continually monitored to make sure that job specs don’t change dramatically. Luckily, tools are available to support this process.
• If you want to get the full benefits of a “full color with MICR” solution on white paper, you will need to invest in software to add security features and a back end perfing solution. Also make sure that the MICR option is not just MICR mixed in with the black ’cause that gets expensive fast.
• If you’re not printing color now, you’ll want to make sure you have enough network bandwidth to handle full color files and understand the impact of different levels of graphics on throughput.

Finally, it needs to be said that not everyone has the volumes that DSTO has to make this type of solution efficient. While there are a variety of models available for different volume thresholds, the move to a full color inkjet platform should not be taken on as an “if you build it they will come scenario.” I’ve helped several customers evaluate the business case for moving to full color white paper and the case needs to be made based on a firm’s existing business – not the promise of future deals. The business case and volume threshhold is completely different when looking at toner devices and, of course, cut sheet versus continuous. Quite often, in those cases it is a cost justification that has to be made based on meeting the color requirements of the marketing department (which may not extend to transaction documents).

Very quickly, full color digital inkjet solutions for transaction printing have moved from a “marketing opportunity” to an operational imperative for many companies looking to reduce costs. At the same time, that operational imperative comes with a huge marketing upside for printers and their customers. Anything that gets operations and marketing people to agree gets a big hallelujah from me!

You access a recorded version of the  webinar here. Watch it an you might become a true believer too.

If ever there were an opportunity to personalize documents, it’s school pictures. Yet I spent this morning bleeding out my eyes because I needed personalization and it wasn’t there.

The story starts with poorly designed print documents and online order site that didn’t match one another. The sample was digitally printed, with my order number and customer pin printed underneath the picture of my daughter. Across the top was text inviting me to the website to order additional prints. Yet once I logged in, there was no place to enter the order number, pin, or access her picture. When I clicked the FAQ and “help” links, they took me to answers about tracking orders but nothing about how to place an order in the first place.

So much for the ability of this digital print shop to upsell me with personalized mugs, calendars, and photo books using their e-commerce solution. Huge lost sales opportunity there.

So I went back to the print materials. The sample print had the order number and pin, but it was not accompanied by an actual order form for the pictures. There was some kind of order form, but after further examination, it was for an entirely different type of product.

I finally located the order form printed on the backside of the large window envelope. It was hidden from view, static printed, and clearly ordered in bulk to be as cheap as possible. By the time I cut out the form (after having to turn the packet inside out and extricate it from the folds), I was so frustrated that I forgot where my order number and pin number were located.

There I was, staring at a blank order form from this digital photobook printer, thinking, “Why isn’t this form personalized? What on earth is wrong with these people?”

This should have been a high-margin sale. The printer had already included a sample print with my daughter’s picture on it, her name, the order number, and the pin. I should have opened the packet, pulled out a pre-filled order form, along with pictures of the high-margin upsells the company would have loved to sell me (preferably with my daughter’s picture already imposed upon them). Instead, I wasted nearly 40 minutes looking on the website, sorting through papers, and then filling out a blank order form with information the company already had. By the time I was done, I was so irritated that I placed the smallest order I could get away with just to be done with the whole business.

So if you’re printing any type of form for your clients, be the hero. Pre-filled forms are one of those no-brainer steps that any client sending out forms should be doing. Not only does pre-filling forms decrease the client (or prospect) irritation level, but this simple act of personalization is shown to increase response rates, as well.