THE NEXT STEP IN MAILING AUTOMATION
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oday’s sophisticated transactional and direct mail offers a complex logistical challenge that has more in common with consumer product manufacturing than it does with most people’s idea of printing and mailing. It may be bank or credit card statements, investment portfolio performance reports, insurance documents or customer loyalty programs, but typically tens of thousands or even millions of separate parts are involved. Some are standardized, some are personalized, and they are likely to be printed using two or more different technologies. The entire mailing list has to be printed without error, brought together at the right time and place, picked and inserted in the correct sequence, mailed, tracked and invoiced.
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JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2016 | www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com
It’s a task that would be impossible without automation, but although the various production and assembly stages are highly automated, the software components that support or enable the various component processes tend to be something of a ragtag collection from different vendors, and often with no single control point from which a clear view of the entire workflow is available.
Complex Kits A typical customer mailing kit, such as an airline’s frequent flyer club, might include several pieces: an individually addressed but otherwise generic cover letter, a brochure detailing customer rewards, a membership or loyalty card, and a fully personalized flyer or insert detailing an offer
specific to each recipient according to their status, membership level and other demographic attributes. Some parts might be offset printed, some digitally printed, some a hybrid of the two (inkjet personalization on an offset-printed carrier, for example), and a plastic membership card might have to be outsourced, but for each recipient, the right version of all the different components has to be available, correctly picked and inserted. To further increase the complexity of the task, the envelope may need to be manufactured and printed too. In addition to the print production aspects, there are data issues to address, such as generating, exporting and cleaning the mailing list, removing duplicates and correcting incomplete or incorrect addresses. These also feed in