Mailing Systems Technology July/August 2016

JULY - AUGUST 2016

www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com

4 WAYS YOU ARE WASTING

TIME, MONEY, AND RESOURCES IN YOUR MAILING OPERATION. PAGE 42

7 WAYS TO SAVE IN 2017.

PAGE 9

10 WAYS TO

GET MORE VALUE FROM DOCUMENT OPERATIONS. PAGE 10

HOT OUR 2016 ANNUAL

COMPANIES

ISSUE PAGE 14

For Pri

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

JULY - AUGUST 2016 | VOLUME 29 ISSUE 4

FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS/COLUMNS 05

Editor's Note

Forging New Partnerships

By Amanda Armendariz

06

Real Life Management

Qualities of Effective Leaders

By Wes Friesen

08

Software Byte

Eliminating Mailer Scorecard Problems Before You Pay Big

By Lloyd Moss

14

09

Special HOT COMPANIES Section

Postal Affairs

Seven Ways to Save in 2017

By Kim Mauch

10

The Trenches

10 Ways to Get More Value from Document Operations

By Mike Porter

12

38 A Vital Partnership

Why connecting your mailing equipment to the network is so important

By Adam Lewenberg

42 Mail to Burn

Four ways you are wasting time, money, and resources in your production mail operation… and how to stop.

By Bruce Gresham

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40 Winning a Multi-Channel Campaign How to best coordinate your direct mail operation with other channels

By Dave Lewis

44 The Impact of the Envelope

The seemingly insignificant” X-factor” and how it affects your bottom line.

By Kathy Battin & Crystal May

Mail & Technology Merge

Master Big Data for an Essential Competitive Edge

By Vincent DeAngelis

13

Say What?

EDITOR'S NOTE

VOLUME 29, ISSUE 4 MAGAZINE STAFF Publisher Ken Waddell

FORGING NEW PARTNERSHIPS

Editor Amanda Armendariz amanda.c@rbpub.com Editorial Director Allison Lloyd allison.l@rbpub.com Contributing Writers Kathy Battin, Vincent DeAngelis, Wes Friesen, Bruce Gresham, Adam Lewenberg, Dave Lewis, Kim Mauch, Crystal May, Lloyd Moss, Mike Porter,

WITH AMANDA ARMENDARIZ

Audience Development Manager Rachel Chapman rachel@rbpub.com Advertising Ken Waddell (o) 608-442-5064 (m) 608-235-2212 ken.w@rbpub.com Design Kelli Cooke RB Publishing Inc. 2901 International Lane Madison WI 53704-3128 Tel: 608.241.8777 Fax: 608.241.8666 Email: rbpub@rbpub.com SUBSCIRBE Subscribe online at www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com.

Subscriptions are free to qualified recipients: $20 per year to all others in the United States.

Subscription rate for Canada or Mexico is $40 per year, and for elsewhere outside of the United States is $45. Back issue rate is $5.

Send subscriptions to: Mailing Systems Technology, PO Box 259098, Madison WI 53725-9098 Call 608.241.8777 Fax 608.241.8666 E-mail rachel@rbpub.com Online at www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com.

REPRINT SALES ReprintPro 949.702.5390 www.ReprintPros.com All material in this magazine is copyrighted ©2016

by RB Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. Nothing may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Any correspondence sent to Mailing Systems Technology, RB Publishing Inc. or its staff becomes property of RB Publishing Inc.

Mail, at first, seems like such a simple process, right?

Mail goes in an envelope, enters the postal stream, and arrives at its destination. Pretty straightforward (at least to those outside the industry). That is, until you actually get into the middle of it, and you see that there are multiple factors to take into account if you actually want your mail pieces to arrive at their destinations at minimal cost to you, while maximizing customer engagement. It’s not nearly as simple as it first appears! Choosing the optimal software, optimizing your addressing processes to keep your lists current, figuring out the right envelope, deciding on the correct ink — mail is actually a very complicated process.

But it’s a process that is made easier with the right partner. That’s why our readers find our annual HOT COMPANIES issue so valuable — it’s a chance to get to know the faces behind the popular solution companies in our industry. After all, most of us don’t buy from companies we’re not familiar with, so this is a way for mailers to see not only the solutions that are out there, but also the organizations that are providing their solutions. Starting on page 16, you can scroll through profiles of some of the leaders in the mailing industry, and if you like what you see, reach out to them and start a discussion.

As a reminder, this is our last issue before Graph Expo; our September/October issue is our show issue. If you are planning on attending Graph Expo, please stop by Mailing Systems Technology’s booth and say hello. We always like to hear what you enjoy about us, what we could be doing better, and any other ideas you may have.

As always, thanks for reading Mailing Systems Technology!

The articles in this magazine represent the views of the authors and not those of RB Publishing Inc. or Mailing Systems Technology. RB Publishing Inc. and/or Mailing Systems Technology expressly disclaim any liability for the products or services sold or otherwise endorsed by advertisers or authors included in this magazine.

MAILING SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY (ISSN 1088-2677) [Volume 29 Issue 4] is published six times per year, (January/February, Annual Industry Buyer’s Guide, March/April, May/June, September/October, November/December) by RB Publishing Inc., 2901 International Lane, Suite 100, Madison WI 53704-3128, 608-241-8777. Periodical postage paid at Madison WI and additional offices.

POSTMASTER Send address changes to: Mailing Systems Technology PO Box 259098 Madison WI 53725-9098

www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com | JULY-AUGUST 2016

5

REAL LIFE MANAGEMENT

By Wes Friesen

QUALITIES OF EFFECTIVE LEADERS

I

n a nutshell, effective leaders are men and women of character (who we are) and competence (what we can do).

Obviously it’s hard to narrow down the qualities to one encompassing list, but I have pulled together a list of 20 qualities that can serve as a good starting place.

I compiled the list by drawing from multiple very credible sources: Kouzes and Posner and their extensive leadership research documented in their book The Leadership Challenge; the ground breaking research by Jim Collins on long-term successful organizations summarized in the book Good to Great; the work of the late Warren Bennis, widely considered as one of the leading experts on leadership ever produced; and other experts including Brian Tracy.

Twenty Qualities (Traits) of Effective Leaders The following list is not in any particular order. There is some overlap between the qualities and certainly a synergistic effect if a leader possesses all of these traits.

1. Visionary (Direction). Effective leaders have a sense of purpose and direction for where they want to lead the organization (team). They have an inspiring vision for a better future for the team. And they can answer the “Big Why” (i.e. Why should we change — move from “here” to “there”).

2. Trustworthy. This quality scored the highest in a Gallup survey of what followers wanted from their leaders. Trust is built through relationships and is the foundation for a leader working effectively with her team.

3. Positive Expectations. The best leaders are optimists who spread their optimism to their teams. Napoleon said that, “Leaders are dealers in hope.” People will tend to rise up to the positive expectations that leaders set for them, especially if there are good relationships in place.

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4. Results Oriented. The most effective leaders focus on achieving worthwhile results.

Ken Blanchard was right when he said, “People who produce good results feel good about themselves.” One of my cardinal principles is, “Success breeds success.” When positive results are achieved and celebrated, positive momentum is created and teams are inspired to experience more success.

One of the best examples of a leader being authentic happened a couple of years ago at our company's all-management meeting. The company was launching an initiative to make safety our company's top priority. Our CEO, Jim Piro, was explaining the safety initiative, but then went off script. Choked with emotion and eyes filled with tears, he said the

“If you can become the leader you ought to be on the inside, you will be able to become the person you want on the outside. People will want to follow you.

And when that happens, you’ll be able to tackle anything in this world.”

—John C. Maxwell 5. Integrity and Honesty. Kouzes and Posner have been surveying people about what they desire in leaders for two decades. Consistently ranking at the top is “honesty” (which is closely akin to Integrity). Integrity includes walking the talk and always seeking to do right. Proverbs 10:9 (NIV) advises: “He who walks with integrity walks sincerely, but he who perverts his ways will become known.”

6. Authentic. People are crying out for leaders that are genuine and “real.” In recent times, we have seen scandals in the business world, in politics, even the nonprofit world. Being honest and trustworthy, admitting our mistakes, and asking for forgiveness when appropriate helps us build the sense of authenticity that people crave.

bottom line was that he wanted all our employees to go home safe every night, and never wanted to make a call to a home that the employee was severely injured, or not coming home at all. I feel the authentic emotion even writing this, and I guarantee the safety message has stuck with all of us who were at that meeting.

7. Inspiring. Successful leaders inspire by painting a picture of an appealing better future. And they show how the work done in the present will lead to the attractive desired future. Sebastian Coe wisely points out that, “Inspirational leaders need to have a winning mentality in order to inspire respect. It is hard to trust in the leadership of someone who is half-hearted about their purpose, or only sporadic in focus or enthusiasm.”

8. Compassion and Empathy. A Gallup survey showed that followers have a strong need for their leaders to be compassionate.

People want a supervisor who genuinely cares about them individually. Life is tough, and being treated with compassion and empathy is much appreciated.

us to “Concentrate on what you do well, and do it better than anybody else.”

There is a concept called “the shadow of the leader.” People will often follow the example a leader sets — so when we exhibit enthusiasm and passion the people on our teams will tend to follow suit.

9. Stability. A Gallup survey also found that one of the key qualities that people want from their leaders is stability. People appreciate leaders that are emotionally stable and not given to mood swings and excessive displays of negative emotions.

14. Courage. People want leaders to be men and women of courage, not driven by fears. This sometimes means that leaders make unpopular decisions, or decided based on values and convictions not popular at the moment. James Allen admonished, “You will never do anything worthwhile in this world without courage.” Winston Churchill adds, “Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.”

10. Hope. Hope is another quality that a Gallup survey found people desired in their leaders. People want hope that the future will be better than the present, and what we are doing now will contribute to creating that better future.

11. Conscientious. I have previously written about the Big 5 Personality traits.

The one personality trait that most marks successful leaders is a strong sense of being conscientious. A conscientiousness person is reliable, responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent.

12. Confidence and Decisiveness. The most effective leaders have confidence in their abilities and the abilities of their teams. Effective leaders are also decisive.

Successful leaders are humble, delegate often, and rely on the strengths of others.

At the same time, when decisions need to be made effective leaders are decisive and not afraid to make decisions (i.e. the buck stops with them).

13) Enthusiasm and Passion. Enthusiasm is an endearing quality of effective leaders.

Walter Chrysler emphasized the importance of enthusiasm when he said, “The real secret of success is enthusiasm.” Ralph Waldo Emerson adds, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” Passion provides the spark and energy to strive for great achievements. John Schnatter, the founder of Papa John’s Pizza, encourages

15. Strategic Thinker/Planner. The best leaders think strategically and can see and explain the big picture. They also understand the concept of stakeholder symmetry and intentionally strive to add value and balance the interests of our key stakeholders — including customers, investors, employees, and the community.

16. Openness/Tolerant of Ambiguity.

Openness refers to our ability to be original, creative, curious, daring, and take risks.

Being tolerant of ambiguity is important because the real world is full of ambiguities — and leaders need to provide leadership even when things are not totally clear and obvious. In a nutshell, effective leaders have the ability to be flexible within the boundaries of their own values and vision for the team.

17) Communicator. When leaders don’t communicate, the gap gets filled by the rumor mill, which is primarily negative.

Effective leaders communicate well so people know direction and how things are going. Gilbert Amelio wisely speaks about the importance of communication skills: “Developing excellent communication skills is absolutely essential to effective leadership. The leader must be able to share knowledge and ideas to transmit a sense of urgency and enthusiasm to oth-

ers. If a leader can’t get a message across clearly to motivate others to act on it, then having a message doesn’t even matter.”

18. Humor. A sense of humor goes a long way in leadership. Appropriate humor can help create a positive work environment and enhance the feeling of camaraderie.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower emphasized the importance of humor by saying, “A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.” Business leader Warren Buffet illustrated his own sense of humor when he quipped, “I buy expensive suits.

They just look cheap on me.”

Robert Half International did a survey and found that 84% of executives feel that people with a good sense of humor do a better job. Respondents to a Bell Leadership Institute survey found that a sense of humor was one of the top two desirable traits in leadership.

19. Personal Humility. Jim Collins and his team researched long-term high performing organizations and what made them so successful. One of the common characteristics of these high performing organizations is they were led by “Level 5” leaders. A Level 5 leader is marked by two defining characteristics — personal humility and at the same time an intense professional will.

A level 5 leader is personally humble and not self-absorbed and arrogant. Being humble is attractive to followers and opens the leader up to listen and respond to other’s advice.

20. Intense Professional Will. This is the second key characteristic of a Level 5 leader. In addition to being personally humble, the top leaders possess an intense professional will. They are strongly committed and motivated to lead the organization to achieve worthwhile goals and achieve success. Some classic examples of extreme Level 5 leaders include people like Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, and Mother Teresa.

My most recent two bosses, Kristin Stathis and Bruce Carpenter, are great examples of leaders with a strong drive and professional will, balanced with personal humility. ¾

Wes Friesen is a proven leader and developer of high performing teams. Wes and his teams have earned multiple awards from a variety of organizations over the years. He has extensive experience in leadership and management roles, in both the business and non-profit worlds. He is also an accomplished university instructor and conference speaker. Your Team Can Soar! can be ordered from www.Xulonpress.com/bookstore or www.wesfriesen.com (under Book) or an online retailer like Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Wes can be contacted at wesmfriesen@gmail.com

www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com | JULY-AUGUST 2016

7

SOFTWARE BYTE

By Lloyd Moss

ELIMINATING MAILER SCORECARD PROBLEMS BEFORE YOU PAY BIG

O

n October 11, 2016, the USPS is resolved to implement the Full-Service assessments it has been talking about for the last few years. When implemented, the assessments will be based on a mailer’s performance during the month of September. You probably think the beginning of automated Full-Service Assessments is “old news” and that you have nothing to worry about. Well, you just may need to think again.

In April, Window Book attended two industry meetings where we had the opportunity to demonstrate new technology we developed to automate scorecard retrieval. The attendees at these meetings included mail operations managers and mail service provider CEOs who typically know how their companies are doing with the Mailer Scorecard. We asked them whether they thought they had any scorecard problems. A number of them claimed, “We have absolutely no problem with our scorecard,” but when we retrieved their scorecard results using this new tool, many of their scorecards showed serious problems that would result in large assessments. Needless to say, these managers and CEOs were completely unaware of the kinds of problems they had!

Had the assessments already been “live,” one mailer would have had to pay over $22,000 in assessments for an excessive number of OCI errors. For companies that co-palletize, these errors occur when the copal pallet information is not uploaded to PostalOne!. Another mailer — who was certain their operation

had no risk of an assessment — showed a potential assessment of over $100,000 for a variety of problems. Clearly this mailer has many processes to improve before it is in the position to avoid large assessments. In this case, it was the CEO who thought they were “out of the woods” and had delegated the responsibility of cleaning up their scorecard to others. He called his team to validate the findings and was quite displeased to learn that the report produced was accurate and the assessments, if then enacted, were real!

One very important thing to keep in mind is that the lack of an assessment one month does NOT mean you’re in the clear for the following months. Even after mailers have identified and implemented the process and software changes needed to avoid assessments, human error can cause missing threshold risks to pop up at any time. Avoiding assessments requires constant vigilance, even once all known problems are addressed. And, as you start participating in other programs, such as eInduction and Seamless Acceptance, there are risks for assessments in those programs as well. On top of that, the USPS can always add additional validations and change thresholds.

The challenge for many mailers is understanding how their mail production and data processing processes impact their Mailer Scorecards. Many long-standing practices may simply not be compliant with updated and new USPS program requirements. If you can’t figure out what is causing your scorecard problems, you need to get help.

So, some words of advice: } Do not assume anything! Look at your scorecard daily. During the first 10 days of each month you should also continue to look at the prior month’s scorecard.

Your prior month’s scorecard can change right through the 10th day of the following month. } At a minimum, on the 11th day of each month, look at your proposed assessment. Before long, it will be something you will be forced to pay. } Research any errors that look like they can exceed thresholds by the end of the month. Drill down right to the job level and figure out why the error is there. If you look at your scorecard frequently enough, you may discover you have a problem and be able to quickly correct it so you won’t exceed a threshold — thus avoiding an assessment. } Don’t assume the errors you see “are the USPS’ fault.” Though there may still be some quirks that can impact scorecard accuracy, testing over the past few months indicates the scorecard is working as designed, and it is looking likely that the automated assessments will start in October as planned. If you don’t agree with the scores, you need to be prepared to challenge them and document why you believe they are inaccurate. ¾

Lloyd Moss, VP of Premier Client Solutions, Window Book, has worked for postal software vendors since 1991 and has assisted hundreds of mailers of all types. Lloyd helps clients with all avenues of process efficiency within the post-presort market including investigating their current systems and implementing recommended best practices mailing management solutions. He also served as a subject matter advisor on USPS eDoc and Intelligent Mail Full-Service projects for three years while at Accenture.

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POSTAL AFFAIRS

By Kim Mauch

SEVEN WAYS TO SAVE IN 2017

W

e’re still months away from any notification of a 2017 price increase, but the USPS has already announced its plans for mailers to save money next year.

With postal prices already a big cost center for mailings, any way to cut down on postage spend can make an impact on your company’s bottom line. That’s where the USPS mailing promotions can come in.

Let’s take a look at the proposals.

Earned Value Reply Mail Promotion This promotion encourages mailers to use Business Reply Mail and Courtesy Reply Mail envelopes and cards. For each BRM or CRM piece returned to you, USPS will apply a credit to your permit. This has been a popular promotion in years past, and the only thing you need to do is sign up. Mailers of all mail classes are eligible. The changes for this year are significant — the promotion will run for six full months (up from three last year), the credit is five cents per piece, and now the Alternate Postage program Share Mail is also eligible. Share Mail is a program where mailers can include a piece that the recipient can send to a friend, while the original mailer pays the postage. If you use BRM and CRM, it makes sense to sign up for this promotion, as you won’t need to change your processes or mail piece design to get this credit.

Tactile, Sensory, and Interactive Mailpiece Engagement Promotion The interesting thing about this promotion is that the technologies required to qualify aren’t very new to the mailing industry.

Almost anything that makes the paper itself interactive can qualify — from tex-

tured paper and finishing, scented paper or stickers, interactive folds, or heat-sensitive ink. Standard Mail letters and flats that include any of these elements can gain a two percent postage discount. Designs do need to be approved in advance, but this is an easy way to save for the interactive elements you’re already using.

Emerging and Advanced Technology Promotion This program has been popular for users of digital technologies. It goes a bit beyond a standard QR code — to qualify, your mail piece will need to include a way for the recipient to engage with technology. This has meant augmented reality and digital print in years past. In 2017, mailers can use virtual reality or programmatic retargeting technology to qualify. If you really want to be on the cutting edge, you can get a tidy two percent postage discount.

Direct Mail Starter Promotion As the only new promotion this year, the Direct Mail Starter program is a way for smaller mailers to achieve postal discounts. While the program is specifically targeted to small mailers, anyone can get the five percent discount for their first 10,000 pieces of Standard Mail. To qualify, you’ll need to sign up, use a QR code or other mobile-print technology to point to a mobile-optimized website, and submit your documentation electronically. The promotion will run from May to July, some of the lightest volume mail months.

Personalized Color Transpromo Promotion If you send First-Class Mail bills or statements, this program promises a two percent

postage discount for including dynamic/variable color print for marketing and informational purposes on the statement or bill. For those who have used this promotion in the past, the transpromo area must include personalized messaging, but new participants only need to include the color component.

This promotion will run the last six months of 2017, giving mailers plenty of time to design and implement their mail pieces.

Mobile Shopping Promotion By far, the Mobile Shopping promotion has been the most popular in previous years. The fall season is already the busiest part of the mailing calendar, and the growth of online shopping, especially on mobile phones, has been staggering. In 2017, mailers have a full six months to include technology that directs to a mobile shopping experience, even through social media platforms. The upfront two percent postage discount, in addition to the increased interest in the mobile site, makes this promotion appealing.

Third Ounce Free While this offering isn’t technically a promotion, as no signup will be required, Postmaster General Megan Brennan indicated that with the next price increase, they will start offering the third ounce for free for First-Class Mail. USPS started offering the second ounce for free a few years ago, and it has been popular. FirstClass mailers have been able to experiment with more flexibility in the envelope, adding marketing messages and the like.

With the third ounce free, mailers won’t need to separately measure and account for these pieces in their mailing. ¾

Kim Mauch is a subject matter expert in mailing preparation and submission at Satori Software. Contact her at kmauch@satorisoftware.com.

www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com | JULY-AUGUST 2016

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THE TRENCHES

By Mike Porter

10 WAYS TO GET MORE VALUE FROM DOCUMENT OPERATIONS

I

n every print and mail operation I’ve ever visited, I have discovered opportunities to improve productivity or lower costs. I always look first for improvements that do not require investing in new hardware or software. In most cases, adjusting processes or leveraging assets already in place can have a direct impact on the bottom line.

Before attempting to justify the cost of new equipment or more staff, take a look at these low-cost or no-cost ideas. They can boost the value of the mail center without requiring capital investments: Make Fewer Mistakes 1. Review and update documentation – Make sure sample books, machine set-up instructions, and job accounting information are current and complete.

Documentation can get outdated rapidly. Requiring operators to repeatedly search for documentation scattered throughout the operation, looking for information buried among volumes of obsolete material, or relying on word-ofmouth instructions increases the error risk. Rerunning jobs because operators lacked current set-up or quality control information can erase all the profit.

2. Add mail piece integrity measures – Prices for cameras and tracking software have become affordable for nearly any size mail operation. All can benefit from implementing automated systems capable of catching errors as they occur. Manual batch balancing processes cannot spot all the mistakes. Money spent on bolt-on vision systems can be recovered with reductions in mailing mistakes that generate customer inquiries consuming valuable resources to research, respond, and correct. Retaining customers who might otherwise leave because of errors also offsets upgrade investments.

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3. Boost quality control – Of all the mailing mistakes I have seen over the years, there have been only a handful the mailer couldn’t have prevented with existing QC procedures. I repeatedly find examples of errors making it into the mail that employees should have caught. Even manual quality control processes work if they are followed.

Review and update current processes and continuously enforce compliance. If consistency is a problem, consider purposely introducing errors occasionally as a test, to keep the staff on their toes.

Besides being error-prone and inefficient, job information split among accounting software, spreadsheets, and program logs makes accurate profit measurement of individual jobs practically impossible.

6. Fix the envelopes and materials – Adjusting the quality or design of envelopes and other materials can improve performance. Using better materials results in fewer jams. When machines can print or fold material consistently and slide it effortlessly into envelopes, operators can crank up the speed. Processing

Processing more pieces per hour adds to capacity with no investment in hardware.

Get More Done in Less Time 4. Measure productivity – Take a look at productivity measurements. They can help identify problems with particular jobs or equipment, or highlight operator training deficiencies. Automated data collection is best, but shops without the technology can develop or enforce their current manual data capture processes to gather the information necessary to evaluate individual jobs, processes, or people.

5. Replace inefficient manual workflows – Many shops manually copy information generated by one software system into another. Estimates, order entry, job scheduling, postage deposits, inventory, and billing are often unconnected processes.

more pieces per hour adds to capacity with no investment in hardware.

7. Stop doing the unnecessary – Look critically at documents currently produced and determine their worth. Obvious areas of opportunity are eliminating duplicates and undeliverable mail. In other cases it might be possible to shorten printing or inserting run times by making small document modifications, such as narrowing the margins or reducing font sizes, that reduce the page count.

Spend Less 8. Plan to take advantage of USPS promotions – Every year, the Postal

Service runs promotions that provide postage discounts, but only a handful of mailers take part. Part of the challenge in the past has been insufficient time to prepare. The USPS aims to address the issue by providing promotional program details sooner. The Postal Service has already announced proposed plans for its 2017 promotions (see page 9 for more information).

9. Review inventory – Organizations waste money storing obsolete materials. They count it for inventory and they move it around to make space for newer items. Many warehouses contain forms and envelopes so old they wouldn’t run on the equipment even if

the organization found a use for them.

Discard useless materials. Also seek ways to consolidate. Small changes in document design, switching to double-window envelopes, or adding inkjet heads to inserting equipment can allow mail operations to use the same envelopes for several jobs.

10. Save on Return Envelopes – Reducing return envelope usage can lower costs and improve productivity. Find out how many customers actually use return mail. Considering the percentage of consumers paying bills online, payments sent in supplied envelopes could be a small number. Shops with intelligent inserters can include return

envelopes selectively, based on customer payment preferences. If the operation lacks an intelligent inserter, jobs may be segmented to separate documents with return envelopes from documents without.

These suggestions are just a sample of low-cost improvements that might be made to increase the value of the mail center. Different opportunities exist in every operation. Mailers have already made the easy modifications to lower their mail processing costs. Finding new ways to squeeze productivity and profitability out of print/mail workflows may take a bit of creativity, but will be worth the effort. ¾

Mike Porter is President of Print/Mail Consultants, a firm that helps document producers save money, raise productivity, and make their mail more effective. You are invited to visit www.printmailconsultants.com and sign up for his free newsletters.

MAIL & TECHNOLOGY MERGE

By Vincent DeAngelis

MASTER BIG DATA FOR AN ESSENTIAL COMPETITIVE EDGE

T

he term Big Data is being used more often in our day-to-day business discussions. In many cases, the data we are now collecting is forcing us to look at our business differently. Departments within companies are beginning to work together in ways that never happened before. Today, the leaders of the business and IT sides of the house must work together to take advantage of the petabytes and exabytes being generated by everything around us.

Big Data is coming at us in velocity, variety, and volume like never before. Those who master this new world will emerge with a competitive edge.

What Is Big Data Telling You?

So, what is Big Data telling us about making our marketing efforts more effective?

Interestingly enough, it is reinforcing what we have known for a long time: multichannel marketing that uses a combination of indirect and direct channels that allows your customers to use or buy your product or service through a channel of their choice works best.

Once a direct mail piece is created and a good mailing list has been utilized, the campaign is ready to begin. Now it is time to test the direct mail piece and see how many customers will respond to your offer.

On average, a household received 19 mail pieces per week in 2014 (down from 25 in 2008). } Direct mail comprised 57% of total mail volume in 2014; up from 40% in 1990 } US organizations spent $46 billion on direct mail in 2014; up from $44.8 billion in 2013

67% of customers said mail is more personal and relevant than the Internet. } 42% of recipients read or scanned direct mail pieces in 2014 } Customers age 18–21 showed an increase in response to direct mail; the response rate rose from 4.1% to 12.4% } Postcards are consumers’ favorite type of direct mail piece; 51% of recipients find them useful And what does all this mean? The data lends itself to this interpretation: fewer mail pieces are received today compared to 20 years ago.

Older customers tend to appreciate mail more. We are seeing, however, growth in the younger generation’s receptivity towards direct mail.

If there is a direct channel relationship with the customer, we see that a well-designed and targeted direct mail piece can help drive that customer to websites, mobile apps, and traditional brick and mortar stores.

There are also additional statistics to compare response rates of direct mail vs. other channels: } Customers are less likely to discard unopened mail (31%) than they are

to discard unsolicited emails (53.2%) about new products } 73% of customers prefer mail for receiving new product announcements and offers from companies they do business with, compared to 18% for email. } In another study conducted by the United States Postal Service, The Mail Moment, 67% of customers said mail is more personal and relevant than the Internet

Think About Campaign Strategy

Effective direct marketing companies always think “campaign” not “offers.”

The success for direct mail campaigns depends on an overall campaign strategy.

Success means the right prospect with the right offer at the right time. There are multiple response techniques that can be used to improve response rates. Test, test, and re-test which techniques work best for each campaign.

Or, you can just take your organization’s raw data and extended megadata and aggregate it in a data lake and then use a series of complex algorithms to search for consistent patterns. ¾

Vincent DeAngelis is Vice President, Postal Relations, Neopost USA. Headquartered in Milford, CT, Neopost USA provides mailing, business communications management and shipping hardware and software solutions. As businesses increasingly move to digital communications, Neopost USA continues to help its customers communicate via physical mail, digital communications and parcels. For more information on Neopost USA, visit www.neopostusa.com.

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SAY WHAT?

Think About It

“So, what is Big Data telling us about making our marketing efforts more effective? Interestingly enough, it is reinforcing what we have known for a long time: multichannel marketing that uses a combination of indirect and direct channels works best.”

— VINCENT DEANGELIS The biggest challenge we encounter when switching mailing systems from analog to networkenabled is firewall issues.

— ADAM LEWENBERG

“To avoid errors, you should designate one person within your company to manage your BRM program.

Engage your USPS design analysis for help, and require all reply pieces go through a QC review for postal compliance before printing.”

— KATHY BATTIN & CRYSTAL MAY

“ONE VERY IMPORTANT THING TO KEEP IN MIND IS THAT THE LACK OF AN ASSESSMENT ONE MONTH DOES NOT MEAN YOU’RE IN THE CLEAR FOR THE FOLLOWING MONTHS. EVEN AFTER MAILERS HAVE IDENTIFIED AND IMPLEMENTED THE PROCESS AND SOFTWARE CHANGES NEEDED TO AVOID ASSESSMENTS, HUMAN ERROR CAN CAUSE MISSING THRESHOLD RISKS TO POP UP AT ANY TIME.”

“There are no shortcuts to mitigating the impact of undeliverable mail. Relying on the National Change of Address (NCOA) and Address Change Service (ACS) is not enough.

Approximately 16-18% of US residents move each year, and only 60% notify the USPS.”

— LLOYD MOSS

— BRUCE GRESHAM

“As the only new promotion this year, the Direct Mail Starter program is a way for smaller mailers to achieve postal discounts.

While the program is specifically targeted to small mailers, anyone can get the five percent discount for their first 10,000 pieces of Standard Mail.”

“With direct mail, you have a good chance that your message will be seen, and maybe even read! The latest USPS household study showed that more than 80% of mail pieces were at least looked at — maybe on the way to the dustbin, but that’s OK — you still made an impression.”

— KIM MAUCH

— DAVE LEWIS www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com | JULY-AUGUST 2016

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16 17 Global Services

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35

36 37

Clear Image Technologies

H O T

COMPANIES BCC Software's suite of address quality, mailing preparation, and data quality services have been recognized across the industry for their robust capabilities for over 35 years.

We increase our customer’s productivity and reduce costs by delivering comprehensive features, integration friendly products, and unlimited access to USPS Mailpiece Design certified support professionals. BCC Mail Manager, our USPS certified address quality and mailing preparation software, is relied on by thousands of companies, including some of the country’s biggest mailers. As a result, our solutions improve deliverability and reduce postage on around a quarter of the US mailstream every year.

2016

BCC Mail Manager gives businesses the benefits of numerous features, allowing users to create a package that best suits their needs.

BCC Software solutions are integration ready, and include API toolkits for custom integrations along with prebuilt connectors to many other software packages in your existing workflow.

Launched in June, Integratec is the first and only available PAVE™ certified API using the secure messaging layer, ZeroMQ™ with the CurveZMQ protocol, enabling Integratec to pass even the most stringent security requirements for mailers in industries like healthcare and finance. The Presort Toolkit, the first toolkit released with Integratec, handles the presort process beginning to end and seamlessly integrates with up and downstream processes.

We complete the direct contact lifecycle with our comprehensive suite of data marketing services. BCC Software offers full service data management and campaign execution services, backed by data licensed from the USPS as well as a handful of carefully selected partners. We also offer mailpiece tracking and reporting that leverage the USPS Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) to improve visibility into the mailstream and enabled timed multichannel communications.

BCC Software’s leadership in the postal technology industry gives its customers an edge.

Company president Chris Lien, a former Mailer’s Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) Industry Chair, provides first-hand insights from the USPS on mail-related products and services, making our customers experts among their peers and invaluable resources to their end clients.

To learn more about products and services, visit http://www.bccsoftware.com or call 800.624.5234.

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CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: BCC Software

PHONE:

800.624.5234

WEBSITE:

www.bccsoftware.com

EMAIL:

marketing@bccsoftware.com

Global Services Bell and Howell continues to evolve at a rapid pace, and is succeeding at what many enterprises would love to do — be highly-relevant in today’s marketplace by identifying and building upon their core skills.

Since its inception in 1907, the company has remained focused on providing innovative services and technologies that enrich customer communications and fulfillment for the world’s largest finance, industry and public sector enterprises.

Bell and Howell now services over 50 brands of systems used in print and mail production, as well as other solution areas such as cash dispensing machines, wide format printers and even robotics. Its Global Services organization is ranked among the most sophisticated in the world.

Many companies are launching initiatives aimed at reducing their costs, simplifying administration and mitigating risk by consolidating maintenance services with a single vendor whenever possible.

Bell and Howell Global Services offers flexible multivendor equipment service programs to service and maintain all or part of the print and mail operation. These can include inserting, finishing systems, sorters, production printers, as well as pre/post equipment.

And unlike other manufacturers, each custom plan can come with 24/7 telephone support, replacement parts, preventative maintenance, repair services and flexible service hours. And with hundreds of technicians across North America, they can reach nearly any location within two hours.

“Our customers love that they only have one number to call any time of the day for service,” said Jim Feely, Bell and Howell’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Service Solutions. “And since many of our customers require non-conventional hours for service, with our flexible plans they can always expect our experienced technicians to be there to keep them up and running.”

H O T

COMPANIES

2016

The Bell and Howell service team is backed by dozens of systems that help make the field service team’s job more effective, including custom mobile apps and customer relationship management systems built on an enterprise SAP® infrastructure. These help the company to track every call that comes in, monitor response times and problem resolution. Additionally, the company use real-time customer surveys and call center data to monitor the level of service customers receive.

Jim Feely, Senior VP Global Business Services

EXECUTIVE PROFILE

Jim Feely is the Senior Vice President of Global Business Services at Bell and Howell. Jim brings over 25 years of industry experience having held both sales and service roles. Most recently, within Bell and Howell, he has held the position of executive director of sales, director of service and the director of worldwide technical support.

Jim earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Warren National University and an associate degree in electronics from DeVry University.

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Bell and Howell, LLC

PHONE:

800.792.4782

WEBSITE: BellHowell.net

H O T

COMPANIES Bell and Howell is shaping the future of mail, commerce and digital communications.

The company is an innovative service and technology solutions provider focused on enriching customer communications and fulfillment for the world’s largest finance, industry and public sector enterprises. Its software and hardware streamlines highvolume, high-integrity print and production of customer communications and products, while maximizing postal discounts, and monetizing every customer touchpoint.

2016

As experts in end-to-end production workflow, Bell and Howell specializes in high-integrity, high-security environments where mistakes are simply not tolerated. These include highly regulated and sensitive industries. It offers solutions for high-speed inserting and wrapping, vision inspection, factory automation, enterprise communications management, postal soration, and parcel production and management. Additionally, the company is a pioneer in software and systems supporting the business-transforming plain paper factory, with solutions that enable personalization, promotion, waste reduction and performance at a scale previously impossible.

Ranked among the most sophisticated in the world for production automation and industrial mechatronics, the Bell and Howell Global Services organization has hundreds of customer service engineers across North America who can reach nearly any location within two hours. And Bell and Howell now services over 50 brands of systems used in print and mail production as well as other solution areas such as cash dispensing machines, intelligent parcel terminals, wide format printers and even robotics.

In the parcel and packaging area, Bell and Howell continues to deliver innovation. Since launching the ParcelMgr and CartonWrap in 2013 and it’s newest labeling system, Raptor in 2016, the company has helped customers lower the cost of parcel fulfillment and delivery by automating tasks of creating the package, reading, weighing, labeling and sorting parcels.

Finally, Smart lockers are emerging as a powerful new solution for 24x7 deliver, pick up and drop off of small to medium-size parcels. That’s why Bell and Howell joined forces with Cleveron, a postal technology company based in Estonia, to jumpstart parcel terminal delivery in North America.

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CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Bell and Howell, LLC

PHONE: 800.792.4782

WEBSITE: BellHowell.net

Clear Image Technologies

Clear Image Technologies is a company focused on affordable, reliable solutions for the direct mail industry. With over 30 years experience in direct mail, we understand that each mailers needs are different and that one large, complex system is more than many companies need. Our goal to provide user-friendly, scalable, inserting alternatives. All of our products are modular.

H O T

COMPANIES

2016

In 2007, we developed the Picture Perfect Match System for companies doing match mailings by hand or hand checking the mailing off the end of their inserter. This visual match system, retrofitted to a customers existing inserter, displays images of the mail components on a monitor to allow the operator to visually inspect to ensure match integrity. This provided a low cost, semi automated system to companies with medium volume match mailings.

In 2009, after many customer requests to stop the inserter in the event of a mismatch, we added the ability to upgrade to optical character recognition. Using the same cameras from the basic system, we could now decode the images to look for names and sequence numbers to match on and data recording of each piece processed.

In 2010 we incorporated the ability to read and decode 2D (Data Matrix) and IMB barcodes.

This data can be used to check against a sequence number.

Now we offer Read and Print. Using our reading technology, inc.jet’s printing software and HP print technology, we can insert, match and print in one pass.

Each of our OCR/Barcode products produce an Excel file that can also be used as end of machine verification. Any product can be purchased individually and upgraded later.

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Clear Image Technologies, LLC

PHONE:

314.853.5867

By partnering with equipment dealers like Tri-State Mailing Equipment in New York, Peak Business Equipment in St. Louis and Chicago, Mailers Engineering in Los Angeles, Timpac in San Francisco, and Creative Mailing Solutions in Toronto, we’ve been able to provide sales, service and support to the U.S. and Canada.

We are constantly in the field, listening to our customers, the sales people, technicians and operators that use our products. Have a need not mentioned here? Call us!

WEBSITE:

www.clearimagetechnologies.com

EMAIL:

larry@clearimagetechnologies.com

H O T

COMPANIES FAST TRACK TO THE CLOUD Click2Mail.com does much more than making mail easy. As a pioneer in cloud-based hybrid mail and API-enabled mailing automation, our technology has helped thousands of businesses streamline the printing and mailing of millions of letters, statements, postcards and self-mailers through cloud-based automation.

2016

Our approach is simple, but powerful. We offer print-to-mail services on-demand: on the Web, in the Cloud, via APIs - even via e-mail. Click2Mail helps you send mail whenever, wherever and however you need it, with no minimum volume – one or ten thousand, printed and mailed the next day. Postcards or letters printed in economical black on white or full color, with a choice of formats, plus personalization with templated variable data functionality. Most importantly, we know postal inside out and our on-demand outsourcing services produce professional-quality mail. Give us your First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, Certified Mail, Priority Mail and more, and rest assured that every address will be CASS standardized and that every mailpiece will have an Intelligent Mail barcode. Producing high quality mail on demand is not simple, but mail is still an essential communications tool - Click2Mail’s goal is to make sending a critical business document via mail as simple as sending an email.

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Click2Mail’s innovative cloud-based mail outsourcing services provide a variety of simple interfaces to meet specific needs of your organization. Email to Mail provides a simple postal mail interface through email. You or your computer application send an email and Click2Mail prints and mails the attachment(s) the next day. Our APIs automate postal mail from your internal systems or application. Click2Mail offers you a choice of APIs that enable the integration and/or automation of programmatic mail-sending processes into any system or application. XML/PDF provides a batch processing interface for large and small mailers. MailJack Plus print driver lets you turn PDFs into postal mail directly from within applications. MailMyDoc for Google Apps is a free app that gives users the ability to send their documents via First-Class Mail with just three clicks. Whichever interface you use, your document(s) will be printed by Click2Mail and mailed the next day.

CONTACT INFO:

Sound interesting? Call us today at (855) 294-5601 and find out what mail automation and print-to-mail outsourcing can do for your bottom line - and peace of mind.

khumphrey@click2mail.com

JULY-AUGUST 2016 | www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com

COMPANY: Click2Mail

PHONE: 855.294.5601

WEBSITE:

https://integrate.click2mail.com

EMAIL:

H O T

COMPANIES Collins Inkjet was founded in 1990 in a garage under the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn, NY as a one-man operation supplying ink for Kodak continuous inkjet printers. Early on, Collins established the principles that still guide everything it does today. Collins’ goal is to be the best supplier its customers have, and to treat all its partners as it would like to be treated.

2016

Eventually, Collins started formulating inks for other printheads and printers. Collins went from only producing water-based inks to producing water-based, oil-based, solvent-based and UV curable inks and established relationships with most major inkjet printhead manufacturers.

Today, high-speed inkjet printing is growing rapidly and expanding into new markets.

Collins has been investing heavily in order to meet the ever-increasing needs of its customers. Collins, continues to expand its lab capabilities purchased a wide range of printing platforms and ink curing solutions created its own pigment dispersion operation created a new printhead refurbishment and parts support operation for Kodak Versamark brand printers pioneered electron beam inkjet (EBeam) to meet what Collins expects to be a greater demand for safer curable inkjet inks.

Collins continues to grow into a significant player in high-speed industrial printing, and was recently acquired by Kao Corporation out of Japan. Collins plans to continue expanding its capabilities to meet the growing demand for high-speed inkjet printing.

Where no other options exist, Collins will attempt to create hardware and software solutions that it will sell to its existing customers and OEM partners.

Collins will continue to execute its strategy of expanding geographically so that it can provide prompt customer service to customers worldwide.

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Collins Inkjet

PHONE: 513.948.9000

WEBSITE:

www.collinsinkjet.com

EMAIL:

Info@collinsinkjet.com

H O T

COMPANIES Digital Bridge Technologies, Inc. is now working as a Full Service Dealership, providing our past, present and future Buskro customers with a strategic product line of new or fully warranted refurbished equipment as well as quality service, parts and consumables.

This line of Buskro products consists of a cadre of various inkjet technologies from our “Entry Level Affordable” to our “Print on Anything” technology.

2016

Take on more jobs. Earn more revenue. Boost your business profits with the ability to print faster, wider and with a higher degree of print quality and consumables control.

You can add graphics, maps and logos at full 660DPI resolution. You will be able to increase production on greater number of products and materials by using our UV Curable Ink technology. This UV Curable Technology has been designed and engineered to afford you a broad range of substrate capabilities including plastics. The controllers we have engineered and equipped with our own “Compose 10 software” moves your business into the future with a multi-platform print control by utilizing Windows 7, 8 or 10 Operating Systems. So before your product leaves the building, ensure it is customized, personalized and attractive to maximize its advertising potential. Cutting, folding, tip-on attaching and poly-bagging are important to your customized, finished product.

But, when you need to personalize it, count on Buskro inkjet and our control systems for versatile printing of variable data and it’s value-added features.

We continue to provide complex mail & print control processes that demand sophisticated control and job management. We also offer our own complete line of transport bases and Tabbers that feature rugged, heavy-duty construction that promote years of trouble free operation whether it be an in-line or our traditional offline production environments, they have been designed and built to our highest standards of durable dependability. Buskro products are designed to be modular and easily integrated into any of your production workflows - whether it is on your finishing equipment or on a quality Buskro in-line base. If you need to personalize it, count on Buskro systems to provide you with the robust system you need.

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Digital Bridge Technologies

PHONE: 815.505.1405

WEBSITE:

www.facebook.com/dbtprintsolutions

EMAIL:

bmoore@dbtprintsolutions.com

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H O T

COMPANIES Direct Logistics, Inc. (DLI) is a 22-year old 3rd-party logistics company specializing in service and technology solutions for destination entry NDC / SCF drop shipping within the direct mail industry. DLI also provides discounted shipping logistics solutions for non-mail, paper based products including printed material and raw print stock – all backed by 99.6% on-time delivery performance, and a customer service team with over 100 years combined experience in NDC / SCF drop shipping!

2016

Based in the heart of the Dallas / Fort Worth metroplex, DLI coordinates postal drop shipments from any mailing or production facility in the continental United States to all USPS National Distribution Centers (NDC) and Sectional Center Facilities (SCF) nationwide. Transportation services include Less-Than-Truckload (LTL), Consolidated Truckload (TL), Dedicated Truckload, and Expedited (air freight) logistics.

For printer / mailers, marketing agencies, consulting firms, mail owners, and political mailers, Direct Logistics is unmatched in terms of technology solutions, industry expertise, and experienced staff. Have questions? Call us – we have the answers!

TruckDirectMail.com - Your online NDC / SCF drop-shipping solution!

Truck Direct Mail (TDM) is a comprehensive web-based resource for less than truckload (LTL) freight shipments, and DLI’s leading SaaS (software as a service) solution. This intuitive website leverages the web to simplify order entry, quote generation, tendering, and tracking for palletized mail being shipped to USPS destination entry facilities nationwide.

Coming Soon: The New TruckDirectMail v2.0!

In the fall of 2016, Direct Logistics will launch a completely new version of the TruckDirectMail.com website. The new site has been rewritten and redesigned from the ground-up with a wealth of new features and functions – including job creation directly from mail.dat uploads. Combined with the fresh, attractive user interface, and advanced API connectivity options, the new TDM v2.0 makes LTL postal drop shipping faster and easier than ever before.

For official TDM v2.0 launch information, please visit www.DirectLogistics.com and see the new TDM section. Simply complete the short notification form (name and email) and we’ll send you updates on the new site launch, and a very special offer for you to try the new TDM v2.0!

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Direct Logistics, Inc.

PHONE: 800.201.0026

WEBSITE:

www.DirectLogistics.com

EMAIL:

questions@directlogistics.com

H O T

COMPANIES Printers and direct mail companies are struggling due to the increased appeal of digital marketing.

This issue is hitting printers from multiple angles: Their clients are less impressed with their direct mail results Print is harder to sell with budgets moving to digital marketing

2016

A revolutionary software has come to the rescue for printers and direct mail companies in the US! The software was beta-tested with one large direct mail company and their results were: 70% increase in reorders from clients who added this service to their campaigns $1,222,113 in additional revenue from up-charges for the service in a 12-month period.

The software is private-labeled for each printer and their clients can log in to see their results in real time. The software automatically adds the following features to every direct mail campaign: Call Tracking: See in real time how many calls each direct mail campaign generated and listen to call recordings Mail Tracking: See in real time what mail has been delivered and scheduled delivery dates Google Follow-Up Ads: Online banner ads are displayed to the same people receiving the mail piece, generating exponential response.

The best part is that DirectMail2.0 is priced so that even small printers can afford it.

There is just a small setup fee and then a per piece price for clients’ campaigns. There is even a "try-it-before-you-buy-it" option where you can run one client's campaign through the software before paying any setup fees.

Get a free demo or view case studies at www.DirectMail2.com

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: DirectMail2.0

PHONE: 844.275.7046

WEBSITE: DirectMail2.com

EMAIL:

sales@directmail2.com

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H O T

COMPANIES Revolutionize Your Data with Precision, Performance & Productivity From our first Postmaster General, Benjamin Franklin to the Pony Express, and today’s must-have 2-Day Shipping memberships, mailing systems have been a hub of innovation for information transformation for nearly 250 years. Getting the right stuff to the right people — at the right time — is crucial to building connections throughout the country and around the globe.

2016

Firstlogic Solutions’ Postalsoft software has been delivering trusted results to the mailing and postal industries for over three decades, and we’re ready to fuel the next phase of innovation. The Firstlogic® DQ10 ACE®, DataRight IQ®, Match/Consolidate® platform delivers: Precision Driven by the industry’s most reliable CASS™ engine, ACE® powered by SAP®, parses and cleanses even the dirtiest data in real-time and batch with updates from USPS® CASS™, NCOALink® and DSF2®. And how does ACE do it? It's the power of the parsing engine.

Performance Our multi-threaded platform corrects, cleanses, de-duplicates, and households data at up to 4X the speed of our competitors. We unlock this potential by offering 3 deployment options: “on-premise” software, “in-cloud” services or a hybrid “on-premise/in-cloud” combination.

Productivity Firstlogic DQ Workflow™ is the first U.S. and International solution that builds custom processes and standard functions with an icon-based, “drag & drop” user interface. By simplifying and automating repeatable processes, our customers have increased quality and productivity while reducing operational time and costs.

Trusted We’re proud to be SAP's leading Gold Partner specializing in data quality. Our team members have worked with this technology for 25 years; shaping it, supporting it, and sometimes reengineering it to develop the best solutions available. Firstlogic Solutions is also a trusted reseller of SAP’s enterprise data services solutions delivering a unified data quality and data integration solution to measure, improve, consolidate and deliver data anywhere.

EXECUTIVE

Ready to take your data into the fast lane? Call 888-725-7800 for more information or PROFILE visit FirstlogicSolutions.com for a full list of data quality solutions.

Firstlogic, Firstlogic Solutions, ACE, DataRight IQ, Match/Consolidate are registered trademarks of Firstlogic Solutions, LLC. USPS Trademarks.

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Firstlogic Solutions, LLC

PHONE:

888.725.7800

WEBSITE:

www.firstlogicsolutions.com

H O T

COMPANIES Since 1967 Kirk-Rudy has manufactured innovative solutions for the mailing, printing, and packaging industries. From their state of the art 100,000 sq. ft. factory just north of Atlanta, GA, a complete product line of feeders, transport bases, conveyors, inkjet printers, inserters, labelers, tabbers, sorting, stacking, tip-on, pick-n-place, folders, bump turns, drying and matching/vision systems are engineered and produced with the highest standards of quality and value.

2016

Harry Kirk’s principle of “Build a better machine, and it will sell itself” has been Kirk-Rudy’s mission since day one. A highly experienced and dedicated team work together every day designing and manufacturing the highest quality mailing and printing equipment used by the world’s top companies.

Kirk-Rudy’s Phoenix is the world’s fastest high resolution inkjet printing system and one of the most versatile printing systems on the market today. Utilizing the latest UV curable inks makes printing on virtually any surface an easy reality.

The KolorJet is an amazing four color high speed inkjet printing system capable of printing 500 color envelopes in one minute, making for a profitable digital inkjet solution for direct mail and transactional pieces.

Kirk-Rudy is well known as an innovator of tabbing systems. The KR545T is the only tabber on the market that will apply multiple tabs to three sides of a mail piece in a single pass. They have a complete line of tabbers to meet every size operation as well as labelers and stamp applicators.

All of Kirk-Rudy’s equipment is sold through a world-wide network of authorized dealers who have been factory trained on sales and service and fully supported by the factory. With Kirk-Rudy’s Customer Satisfaction Guarantee all the guess work is removed from choosing the right equipment. Ask anyone who owns their equipment and they will tell you, “Nothing is built like a Kirk-Rudy”.

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Kirk-Rudy, Inc.

PHONE:

770.427.4203

WEBSITE:

www.kirkrudy.com

EMAIL:

jwilliams@kirkrudy.com

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H O T

COMPANIES Mail-Gard to the Rescue Invoices, statements, policies, payroll—if you can’t print and mail these critical communications, your company can suffer fines, loss of cash flow and compliance issues.

When a business interruption strikes, whether a result of Mother Nature or more often a human cause, it’s essential to have a print-to-mail recovery plan you can trust—to help dig you out of trouble.

Mail-Gard Can Help!

2016

Mail-Gard’s business continuity and disaster recovery services ensure delivery of your critical documents, keeping you in compliance and keeping you in business.

Think you’re covered if your print-to-mail operations are outsourced? Multiple facilities does not equate to a recovery plan! Capacity and capabilities must be considered when finalizing a continuity plan that will work when you need, not just on paper.

Do you have the right recovery plan in place?

Technology is ever increasing and targeted to providing your customers with high quality, critical information to keep you in business—keep your customers informed. You need a recovery partner who understands the advancements in print and insert technology, one who can assist you through a major event or just a peak in your production workload.

About Mail-Gard Mail-Gard’s business continuity and disaster recovery service has been protecting Fortune 1000 companies, local industries and state and federal customers from serious business interruptions since 1996. We practically started the print-to-mail recovery industry and have been an innovator ever since. ®

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Mail-Gard

PHONE: 267.960.3119

Our strengths are many: the only business continuity and disaster recovery provider to offer two dedicated print-to-mail recovery facilities, a broad range of technical solutions and seasoned, experienced employees with the knowledge to replicate your print-to-mail requirements.

WEBSITE:

No one can beat our 100% success rate for declaration support. We are proud to have served our declaration customers through multiple and long-term declaration events.

Christine.Burke@iwco.com

Print-to-mail business continuity and recovery services…

It’s who we are, it’s what we do!

www.mailgard.com

EMAIL:

H O T

COMPANIES Are you expanding internationally? Technology and data-driven communications allow us to live in an increasingly interconnected world. What an opportunity for companies of all sizes to thrive. Melissa Data can help you. Like many of our customers, Melissa Data has gone global. We now have offices in the U.K., Germany, Australia, and India offering critical service and support to customers.

2016

We’ve also partnered with Canada Post®, Royal Mail, and Deutsche Post to tackle global data quality and address management issues. Our global suite of solutions verify, standardize, and format international addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses to support customers expanding into new international markets.

Verify your customers’ U.S. and international addresses before you ship to improve order entry and reduce return charges as well as address correction fees. Our address verification tools can autocomplete, correct, and verify data for over 240 countries and territories, standardize addresses to a country’s local format, and add missing components: postal codes; regions; and more. This improves shipping times, reduce risks and costs, and boosts conversions as well as customer experience.

Our global verification tools are available as Cloud services, on-premises APIs, or convenient plugins for Excel®, SQL Server®, and Oracle®. In addition, our tools integrate with popular CRMs like Salesforce® and Microsoft Dynamics®, and with leading ecommerce and shipping solutions such as Magento®, Shopware®, Decimal, and OrderCup. Along with address verification, we also geocode shipping addresses in your database by adding precise lat/long coordinates for over 40 countries. Pinpoint customer locations to improve service and support logistics. Reduce errors in the critical “last mile” of the delivery chain to save time, fuel, resources, and costs while promoting customer satisfaction.

To help shippers choose the most cost-effective carrier, we offer Residential Business Delivery Indicator (RBDI) to verify address delivery type. Take parcel shipping to the highest accuracy and efficiency while reducing costs to the lowest possible rate. Slash cart abandonment with Decimal, our shipping prediction algorithm, and keep shipping costs profitable while pleasing customers.

EXECUTIVE

PROFILE Since 1985, we have committed ourselves and our global data expertise to helping our customers achieve international marketing success.

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Melissa Data Corp.

PHONE:

800.635.4772

WEBSITE:

www.MelissaData.com

EMAIL:

sales@melissadata.com

H O T

COMPANIES Neopost USA provides hardware and software to mailers and shippers of all sizes. Neopostbrand solutions enable businesses to send and receive physical mail, digital documents and traceable packages. More importantly, Neopost solutions help customers connect with their customers by establishing individualized, one-to-one business relationships. Founded in 1924, Neopost has grown to become a leading provider of mailing and shipping solutions as well as digital communications management. Its fastest growing product segments improve business-critical processes that occur outside of the traditional mail center.

2016

Meet Your Business Objectives with a Comprehensive Solution Neopost USA is best known for physical mail expertise and its extensive range of mail center equipment. Today, the company has transformed into a major player in digital communications management and shipping automation. Neopost USA’s software solutions provide businesses the ability to maintain high quality customer contact data, deploy electronic document delivery and apply cost-saving, enterprise-wide shipping controls. Together, Neopost USA’s comprehensive portfolio of hardware and software solutions help organizations increase operational efficiency, enhance process integrity and deliver a superior customer experience.

Manage Customer Communications Through a Single Platform Neopost USA provides a single platform that effectively manages customer communications without changing a customer’s existing business applications like enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) or accounting platforms.

This unique solution, OMS-500, is a multi-channel output management solution that runs on the highest performing platform in the industry. It provides organizations with the ability to automate the manual document preparation processes while validating customer contact data through its integration with Satori Software. It also integrates with a unique, cloud-based ConnectSuite e-Delivery solution that allows businesses to easily evolve to digital communication and manage recipient preference without user intervention.

Secure Your Communications Privacy regulation compliance and the responsibility to protect personal customer information have escalated into legal requirements in many industries. It is essential that businesses do not mistakenly send communications to the wrong customer. OMS-500 addresses this concern by adding integrity to the mail assembly process. It secures each mailing piece with a unique barcode and provides mail piece tracking to ensure critical communications reach the intended recipients.

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Neopost USA

PHONE: 800.636.7678

WEBSITE:

www.neopostusa.com

EMAIL:

neomkt@neopost.com

H O T

COMPANIES NPI Sorting systems are designed to optimize your sorting operations with advanced design and intelligent software. Built around patented antijam technology, the sorters run more economically as time-wasting jams are virtually eliminated. Multiple motors precisely located throughout the sorter, instead of a single motor power transmission system, drastically reduce maintenance costs and power consumption. Modular ergonomic design promotes seamless upgrades and modifi cations to support your expanding operations and improve production efficiency. NPI Sorting Systems provide solutions for products ranging from postcards, letters, flats, and even small to large parcels. The NPI Catalog of Sorting Systems represents some of the most innovative, advanced and fastest Sorting Systems on the market, but Sorting Systems are only half of the equation.

NPI Software Suites are as versatile and innovative as sorters. Through the advent of Intelligent Mail and the universal Mail.dat format, effi cient data management is now the key to sort optimization, enhanced qualifi cation and postage savings. NPI’s OptESuite of software products allows our customers to predetermine sort plans, identify what levels of qualification is best for their operation and understand what it takes to maximize postage savings before a mail piece even hits the sorter. This allows customers in the Printing Industry and Large Standard mailers to realize real savings through commingling and co-palletization. The same technology also allows Service Bureaus to analyze different mail streams to determine the most profitable mail streams to commingle.

In today’s mailing world, you can’t afford to be second. If you want your operation to be as efficient, profitable and successful as it can be, you need to contact NPI. We will analyze your operation and offer real solutions to help you be first.

2016

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: NPI

PHONE:

888.821.7678

WEBSITE:

www.npisorters.com

EMAIL: michelle@nationalpresort.com

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Paloma Print Products offers true end-to-end document quality assurance solutions.

Paloma’s flagship solution - Print Perfect - automates labor-intensive, costly, and errorprone manual document QA processes. Print Perfect compares documents digitally, in a fraction of the time required by manual processes. Print Perfect can cut document testing time/cost by up to 75% while allowing document applications to be tested more thoroughly, reducing risk for companies that present sensitive customer information in their documents.

Print Perfect consists of two primary software modules – STREAMdiff and Switch.

STREAMdiff is print stream comparison software which quickly, objectively, and accurately compares AFP, Xerox© Metacode, Postscript, PDF, PCL, and ASCII text files. Because STREAMdiff compares the underlying print file constructs/commands as well as the pixel-level document layout, it can compare print files generated by different CCM packages, or compare one print file type to another. For example, STREAMdiff can compare Xerox© Metacode files generated by Oracle© Documerge to PDF files generated

by HP Exstream©.

Switch is document QA workflow automation software for designing and implementing automated document quality/testing processes. From launching high-volume batch print comparisons to email notification upon completion of comparison jobs to the creation of a time- and date-stamped testing audit trail, Switch ensures the most efficient document quality assurance processes by minimizing the need for manual intervention.

Paloma’s second document QA solution, ADEPT Suite, scans nightly production print files for branding mistakes or inappropriate language. For example, if a company produces documents for multiple company brands/subsidiaries, ADEPT Suite scans “Subsidiary A’s” production print files to ensure that “Subsidiary B’s” name, website address, etc., have not been accidentally placed on “Subsidiary A’s” documents. Paloma’s clients also scan their documents for profanity or other inappropriate language. When errors are encountered, a report is generated showing all pages containing mistakes so these documents can be pulled from the nightly print run and corrected. ADEPT Suite provides our clients another fully automated quality checkpoint for their customer documents.

H O T

COMPANIES

2016

Whether you print your own documents or for other companies, Paloma’s document QA solutions will save you time and money while ensuring you produce the highest quality documents.

Joe Pigeon is President, as well as a founding member, of Paloma Print Products. With more than 24 years of experience in the document creation industry, and a diverse background in sales, marketing, and product management, Joe has been instrumental in establishing Paloma’s current leadership position in document quality assurance automation.

EXECUTIVE PROFILE

By focusing on more than solely the development of a print stream comparison tool, Joe has helped Paloma assemble the only end-to-end document quality assurance solutions, which is a key competitive advantage for Paloma’s clients. In addition, Paloma’s keen focus on providing unparalleled client training and ongoing support ensures our clients maximize the return on their investment in our solutions.

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY:

Paloma Print Products

PHONE:

262.618.4125

WEBSITE:

palomaprintproducts.com

EMAIL:

sales@palomaprintproducts.com

H O T

COMPANIES “Your Mailing Robot” is a fair and apt way to describe Postalocity.com.

Robotics is designed to work without human intervention. And that’s precisely what Postalocity has done with the mailroom. Postalocity is an online document outsourcing solution controlled entirely from your keyboard, removing nearly all human interaction and interference, resulting in economical, error-free work. For mailers having experienced difficulty with mail shops making errors, this is most welcome news. Postalocity is their holy grail of the mailing industry.

2016

To visualize just what Postalocity is, imagine on your left is a large volume mailer with 1 million similar documents. That’s easy, and what most service providers compete for.

Now imagine on your right 1 million people, each sending one letter to a few hundred or thousand documents, each with different design, address placement, page count, mixed media, clear-zone encroachments, custom envelopes, and reply envelopes…taken in all together, an incredible complexity. Postalocity can accept either scenario, or both together, though preferring the greater complexity, and everything will be produced in a single output stream, and all without use of templates or cover pages or window envelopes. The only human interaction will be in loading and moving paper to the machines.

Your benefit is easy access to inexpensive, easy document outsourcing. Create any printable document on your computer. Drag and drop it into the Postalocity portal. Immediately the Postalocity robot will digest the document design and ask any necessary questions if this is its first time to see it. Then it will produce the document to print-ready status and show you on-screen proofs of every document and envelope in the job. You proof it, and approve it, and pay for it, and Postalocity builds it to your specs and mails it. C-JET! “Correct Job, Every Time.”

CONTACT INFO:

Postalocity seeks to become a ubiquitous, de facto mailing platform for moving use of the U.S. Mail into the digital age, providing professional document outsourcing to the smallest volume mailers. API competitive support available. Small volume mailers, take note: typical savings over in house mailing is $.50 per envelope.

WEBSITE:

Ditch the mailroom. Meet your Mailing Robot: Postalocity.com.

EXECUTIVE

PROFILE

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COMPANY: Postal Presort, Inc

PHONE: 316.262.3333 Postalocity.com

EMAIL:

bjpulliam@postalocity.com

H O T

COMPANIES For years, Rena has been known for their addressing printers, but we have evolved into so much more. We want customers and prospects to think “outside the envelope”. Today Rena offers the industry’s most comprehensive family of high-tech digital color and monochrome inkjet and toner-based printers, as well as tabbers, for every size business in any industry.

2016

Rena’s Mach 5 Digital Color Printer is unlike any other envelope printer in its class.

Using revolutionary technology from Memjet, the Mach 5 is capable of printing full color graphics and variable data up to 12 inches per second on a variety of material. It is capable of printing long runs, but also perfect for those on-demand short runs. The Mach 5 Digital Color Printer is sure to speed up your return on investment!

Rena also offers its first toner-based system, the OKI C900 Series. Consisting of two printers, the C931 and the C941, these workhorse machines allow you to extend your in-house printing and presentation capabilities to a whole new level. At an affordable price and a low total cost of ownership, you are able to produce stunning documents on a wide variety of stocks. What’s more, the C941 model is able to print with white and clear toner! A definite game-changer in the industry.

We also carry world-class high-speed addressing and tabbing systems for the everyday mailer. These durable machines will save you time and money so you can make more time for other projects.

Complementing the address printers, Rena provides mailing software by Satori for a complete solution featuring mailpiece design, address quality management, 48-month NCOA, postal presort, ZIP+4 encoding, and advanced data quality and data appending services. For the digital printers, we offer mColor, a professional grade color management and job workflow tool which uses a Harlequin RIP to process graphics.

Rena is a brand of Neopost, a company that delivers mailing, business communications management and shipping hardware and software solutions to organizations around the world. All of Rena’s products are designed, engineered and manufactured in the USA with the primary focus on providing the highest quality products on the market. We EXECUTIVE invite you to learn more at www.renausa.com.

PROFILE

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Rena

PHONE: 888.444.7362

WEBSITE:

www.renausa.com

EMAIL:

sales@renausa.com

Satori is mailing.

When your name is synonymous with the industry, it’s because you’re a leader in that space.

When you’ve been a leader for over 30 years, it’s because you’ve defined the space. Satori Software has and continues to shape the mailing and print environment, from our founding in 1982 to the launch of our revolutionary workflow automation solution, Satori IGNITE in 2016.

We’ve maintained our position in the industry, and loyalty of our customers, through the pillars that define our company and enable our success; dedication to providing topnotch mailing software for businesses of all sizes and a constant hunger for innovation, anticipating industry changes and the needs of our customers. Satori Software provides the support and technology you require — from data processing to post-sort and entry planning — to keep your mailing operation successful. As your organization grows and evolves, we’ll assist you with industry insights, software and services that allow you to surmount your challenges and embrace new opportunities.

What does innovation look like? This year Satori has launched IGNITE, a new data processing automation solution that transforms your operations, decreasing processing times by a minimum of 90%. We’ve also expanded our data services beyond the address, with additions like email and phone append. That’s innovation backed by our industry expertise and continued commitment to customer success.

Whether you’re a print shop... looking for a desktop-based solution that will allow you to capitalize on automated, document management systems and advanced sorts. Our USPS® CASS™ and PAVE Gold certified mailing solutions offer address correction, 48-month NCOALink® updates, full support USPS Intelligent Mail requirements and much more.

H O T

COMPANIES

2016

…Or an enterprise mailer needing to optimize your processes and take business to the next level, Satori’s advanced solutions help you make that leap by providing additional data services that improve the quality of your mailing lists and can help you achieve increased efficiency through process automation.

We have a solution for you.

Satori is mailing, but our achievements aren’t measured in stamps or ink, but by our customers’ success.

EXECUTIVE PROFILE

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Bob Schimek, Senior Director of Postal Affairs for Satori Software, has over 26 years in the mailing industry and represents Satori Software and its customers within the top postal industry associations. He’s Chairman of the Board for the 2016 – 2017 term at PostCom, and a former board member at AMSP and EPICOMM. He currently serves as the industry leader in the Payment & Acceptance and Education At Mailer’s Technical Advisors Committee (MTAC), where he also represents IDEAlliance, as chair of the the Mail.dat specification committee, and is an active member of Mailing Software Developers Group (MSDG) and Postal Operations Technology Committee (POTC). Schimek serves as primary liaison with the USPS on technical matters that affect the company’s mailing solutions.

JULY-AUGUST 2016 | www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Satori Software

PHONE: 800.553.6477

WEBSITE:

www.satorisoftware.com

EMAIL:

sales@satorisoftware.com

H O T

COMPANIES What does Sensible mean to you?

Does it mean streamlining processes to improve efficiencies? Maybe it means reducing overhead, while giving your customers the best possible service and products. Or maybe it’s relying on systems and parts that are easy to operate and service, so downtime is never a problem.

2016

For us, Sensible means all of the above.

At Sensible Technologies, we offer intelligent inserting solutions that improve your bottom line. Our approach to intelligent mail equipment, software and service starts with the most important capabilities and strips away everything unnecessary to provide a system that’s easy to operate, easy to service and keeps you up and running longer.

We are committed to keeping our designs simple for a solution that delivers more uptime, lower operating costs and higher productivity.

Introducing: The MPM (multipageMAILER) One example of our commitment to innovation and efficiency is the MPM (multipageMAILER). This new product focuses on providing mailers with time, space and efficiency, by allowing for the production of transactional documents and letters with matching envelopes in a single pass.

The MPM feeds, folds and seals an envelope inline, using the same paper used for the interior sheets. Designed for simplicity, it’s easy to install and use, with compact construction and touch screen operation.

Ideal for mailers who have invested in high-speed inkjet printers, the MPM offers key benefits, including: convenience and efficiency; security and data privacy for recipients; eliminated need for #10 envelopes; reduced warehouse space; reduced overhead and physical footprint; personalized messaging on outer envelopes, and marketing opportunities via Onsert messaging on the inside of the envelope.

To learn more about Sensible Technologies and the MPM, visit sensibletech.com or contact EXECUTIVE us at sales@sensibletech.com.

PROFILE

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Sensible Technologies

PHONE: 734.421.1727

WEBSITE:

www.sensibletech.com

EMAIL:

sales@sensibletech.com

H O T

COMPANIES Innovation through Experience is a way of life around Straight Shooter. Jim Kaiping, President and founder of Straight Shooter Equipment Company stated, “With over 27 years’ experience selling and servicing a wide variety of mailing and printing equipment, I felt that although the technical advances in equipment have been impressive resulting in faster more versatile equipment, the improvements in feeders were incremental at best. The same problems that plagued friction feeders when I started in 1979, were still prevalent with crooked feeding, double feeds, frequent jams and cumbersome set up to name a few. So in late 2004, I began my design with a simple goal – to make a feeder that feeds straight!” Now every Straight Shooter feeder uses our patented Buckle Separation™ technology for document separation and are guided through the feed process, feeding straight! Copied but not deterred; though others have now come up with strikingly similar designs we are flattered and like to think we “shook up” the feeder companies!

2016

Another area that needed improvement was the service aspect for feeders. Traditional friction feeders are difficult to service and a “routine” call such as changing the feed belts can be a very involved and expensive procedure. Because of this difficulty, operators often run machines that are badly in need of service, further hurting production.

All of the belts on Straight Shooter feeders can be changed in minutes, with a single allen wrench as the only tool required. This means that users are more inclined to change the belts when needed, which of course optimizes feeder performance and results in better production numbers.

Fast forward to 2016 - Now 37 years of experience and with over 25 Straight Shooter state of the art feeders supplied to the mailing, printing, packaging and bindery industries. VP of Sales and Marketing, Gordon Barkley, who has been on board since day one stated.

“We continually look for new opportunities and have been extremely fortunate to partner with some very progressive companies. As a result, we will be show casing two models for launch in the fall at Graph Expo that are as usual, a little different than present offerings in the field and proudly made in the USA. It is because of our real world, on the ground, experience in these industries that the innovation comes through and takes our customers outside the box and into more productive feeding!”

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CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Straight Shooter Equipment Company

PHONE: 607.334.6811

WEBSITE:

www.feedstraight.com

EMAIL:

gdbarkley@feedstraight.com

H O T

COMPANIES Xante has been a pioneer in the digital print industry for over 25 years. Their award winning digital print systems yield fast, full-color results on a wide range of media options that bring production automation to digital print shops everywhere. The Impressia Digital Multi-Media Press and the patented Enterprise High Speed Feed System have revolutionized the envelope printing market with rapid print speeds (up to 78 full color envelopes per minute), enhanced color quality (up to 2400), and the industry’s lowest cost per print (less than 1¢ per envelope). With the Impressia Multi-Media Press, users can print on a wide variety of stocks including uncoated, coated, NCR multi-part forms, card stocks, textured stocks, label stocks and envelopes (Bar-4, Monarch, standard #10, window, large envelopes, and more). The Impressia’s ability to output waterproof, high-quality, full-color envelopes including variable data with Intelligent Mail barcodes is visually transforming mail. The complete turn-key solutions allow users to print on a wider variety of media and sheet sizes to produce more in-house and on-demand. The patented Enterprise High Speed Feed System features an innovative straight feed path that provides fast and smooth delivery for seamless transitions with any type of output.

The HWC Heavyweight Champion Digital Production Press and the Excelagraphix 4800 are also included in Xante's impressive line of products. The HWC features ultra-thick printing capabilities up to 500gsm (24pt) with resolutions up to 2400. The Excelagraphix 4800 is a high speed, wide format inkjet powered by Memjet® Waterfall Printhead Technology™ capable of printing customized, full-color corrugated flat sheets up to 48” wide at speeds of 12” per second, for just pennies per square foot. Xante's digital print systems are all driven by the user-friendly iQueue Workflow that simplifies prepress tasks with job cost estimating, full imposition/tiling, independent CMYK density adjustment, and much more.These products are available through a growing global network of distributors and resellers. Xante is dedicated to providing customers with the best service and the latest technology in digital printing.

For more information on the Xante products and software, please visit www.xante.com or call 800.926.8839.

EXECUTIVE PROFILE

2016

CONTACT INFO: COMPANY: Xante

PHONE: 800.926.8839

WEBSITE: www.xante.com

BY ADAM LEWENBERG

A VITAL PARTNERSHIP

Why connecting your mailing equipment to the network is so important

A

s recently as 20 years ago, mailing systems were standalone devices that only plugged into a power outlet.

When the meter needed to be filled, it was taken to the Post Office, where they added funds. Then came filling your meter over the phone, which required that you had an analog phone line connected to the back of the unit. Many of these same analog connections are still in place today.

There is a huge push in the industry to move everyone from analog to network connections. This article will detail what is happening in technology and why this change will streamline operations for the future.

Issues with Analog Connections Let’s start with the hard truth: It is going to be harder and harder to get analog phone lines in the future. Many of the large phone

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companies are pushing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allow them to stop providing analog services, which will, in turn, raise prices. The mailing vendors are also not including analog modems with new equipment orders. If they are required, there are extra fees, ranging from $100-400 per meter.

By moving to network connected meters, you could have a significant savings in phone charges. Many organizations are keeping analog lines for their postage meter and fax machine without other uses. In other words, their main phone system is digital and run through their network. As fax machines are replaced by digital multi-function devices, the mail machine may be the only thing used on the $300-600 per year analog line.

The biggest challenge we encounter when switching mailing systems from analog to network-enabled is firewall issues.

The systems are basically designed to work when you plug them into the network jack, but many companies have security standards that require IT to get involved.

This can delay the installation and require multiple departments to be brought in to assist with what used to be a simple process. Additionally, is a network connection near where the equipment is located? The good news is that there are many options, ranging from wireless adapters to connecting to the back of IP phones that have an extra port.

Benefits of Network-Enabled Mailing Systems The good news for clients is that network-enabled mailing systems can do many more functions that will make them easier to use and provide additional value for your organization. Increased quanti-

ties of data can be transmitted at faster speeds, which will be the future direction for this industry.

Clients will see the biggest impact in the shipping space. This is looked at as the new frontier for the USPS, and mailing vendors are trying to boost their capabilities to serve clients at higher levels. The USPS is having huge growth in the shipping space because it is typically the least expensive carrier for lightweight packages going to residences (vs. businesses). Also, its tracking capabilities and delivery networks have gotten better to make them a stronger competitor to the private carriers.

The key impact driving this change is the push by the USPS to have package level detail for all shipments. If you can provide the 4X6 shipping label with the destination address and barcode, you are able to get Commercial Base vs. the Retail rates offered in postage meters and at the Post Office counter. The additional discounts range from nine to 41% per package based on weight and distance. The meter vendors have developed network-enabled software that can generate these rates and labels.

On top of mail discounts, this can also streamline the entire package process.

This includes the following: } Validating that the address is correct and matches the USPS national database. } Storing an address database where contacts can be resent with ease. } Providing reporting details on all packages shipped. } Premier Service options that let you rate and ship third-party carriers from the mailing system. } Tracking for USPS and other carriers through the same user interface. } One method of payment for all mailing and shipping.

Outside of shipping, there are also multiple benefits of the having meters network connected. } Automatic Rate Updates – Network-enabled devices may be able to push the correct rates to your system vs. needing to wait for the next time you refill your meter. This would be especially important with this last rate change where the pricing went down. } Web Accounting – One of the biggest developments with mailing systems is being able to enter department accounting information on the meter and access on the web through the vendor’s website.

You used to need expensive accounting

systems or have printers connected that required retyping information into your business system. Now you can access this data from the web and then export it into Excel to be used internally. } Mail Class Detail – You can now see the details of the mail classes used at each meter. You can use this information to find savings strategies for the future. Here are some examples of places to find savings: } Certified Mail with Return Receipt – Switching to electronic versions saves $1.35. } Priority and Express Mail – By moving from Retail to Commercial (as described above) can save up to 55%. } First-Class Mail – If the volumes exist, could you use a presort service or barcode your mailings internally to reduce costs?

It was made clear at a recent product launch by Pitney Bowes that the future of the mailing system will be web-enabled functions that can be added to the system to increase its value to the client. It is adding cloud-based applications that will allow the appliance to do more for the client than just printing postage. We have seen the

same thing from Neopost, where they are creating value by having a computer linked to the mailing system to be able to automate shipping and accounting. We see this trend increasing as the vendors try to offset declining mail volumes with the increase in USPS shipping. We strongly recommend that as clients migrate to new mailing systems, that they connect them to the network vs. holding onto antiquated analog phone lines. There will be savings across the board along with increased capabilities and information available through their systems. ¾

ADAM LEWENBERG, CMDSS, MDC, President of Postal Advocate Inc., runs the largest provider of mail audit and recovery services in the US and Canada. They manage the largest mail equipment fleet in the world and their mission is to help organizations with multi-locations reduce mail related expenses, recover lost postage funds, and simplify visibility and oversight. Since 2013, they have helped their clients save an average of 57% and over $23 million on equipment, fees and lost postage. He can be reached at 617.372.6853 or adam.lewenberg@postaladvocate.com. www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com | JULY-AUGUST 2016

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By Dave Lewis

BUILDING A WINNING MULTI-CHANNEL CAMPAIGN: PART ONE

A

h, the Mail Moment! You come home from work, feed the cats, feed the dog (at least that how it works in my house), and get the day’s mail out of the mailbox. Flipping through it, you see a postcard for window replacements and stop to look at it for a second.

“Hmm,” you think, “we need to get new windows. I wonder if these guys are any good...” There’s a free window offer on it, so you set it aside on the kitchen counter.

Eventually you pile a couple of credit card offers and a magazine on top of it, and start making dinner.

After dinner, you sit at your computer to check the news, see if you got any emails, and just relax. On the news website you see a banner ad for that same window company. “Oh yeah. I need to remember 40

JULY-AUGUST 2016 | www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com

to call them tomorrow.” You check your email, and there is an email from that same window company with the same offer — in fact, it looks a lot like the mail piece that your wife just put on the recycling pile. “Oh good,” you think. “I’ll just click on this and request some information.”

Mission accomplished, coordinated direct marketing! We just delivered a prospect!!

Now, if you had only gotten the mail piece, you may have well forgotten all about it by the next day — that is often the fate of direct mail. After all, your wife had already gotten rid of the piece. The banner ad by itself barely registered — it caught your attention because you had gotten a piece of mail. You wouldn’t normally even open an email from that window company, but your interest had been piqued by the other channels, and the email gave you an

easy way to respond, right then. The combined effects of a multi-channel campaign worked on you.

And this is not just anecdotal — study after study show that response rates are better when multiple marketing channels are used together. There are a lot of terms for this kind of marketing — integrated, multi-channel, omni-channel, and more. Let’s call it coordinated direct marketing for our purposes. The key is to take multiple channels and have them work in concert.

Direct Mail – Still the Indispensable Channel For much of direct marketing, mail remains an irreplaceable channel. There are certain qualities to direct mail that other channels just can’t deliver:

get a 10% open rate — 90% of your prospects will never see your offer. Direct mail gets more eyes.

Exclusivity. How many emails did you get today? How many banner ads did you see?

100? 500? Now how many pieces were in your mailbox at your home? Six or seven?

Your mail piece has a lot less competition in the mailbox.

The Mail Moment. The Postal Service talks about this a lot, because it’s a real thing: the Mail Moment. There is a time when most people in America stop and got through their mail. For that 30 seconds, or however long it takes, you have their undivided attention. This is a great moment for your offer. No other channels harness attention in the same manner.

Targetability. Direct mail can be easily and effectively targeted — it is really the only channel where you can simply buy — or at least rent — a list of your best prospects. Want to send a message to all of the plumbers in Baltimore? Direct mail can do that. Other channels just don’t offer that precision. You can buy email lists, but they are much less reliable and complete.

Market Penetration. With direct mail, you have a good chance that your message will be seen, and maybe even read! The latest USPS household study showed that more than 80% of mail pieces were at least looked at — maybe on the way to the dustbin, but that’s OK — you still made an impression. If it’s the right offer at the right time, you’ve got a solid shot at response.

On a marketing email, you’re lucky if you

But It’s Not Perfect…

For all of its strengths, direct mail faces some real challenges, too. These weaknesses are what we are trying to overcome in a multichannel campaign.

It’s expensive. Direct mail is an investment. When you factor in design, production, and postage, a typical direct mailing costs fifty cents to a dollar or more per piece. So where I might casually fire off an email to a few thousand of my closest friends, I’m going to think a little mare about the message I’m including in my mail piece.

It requires effort to respond. Even when you get the perfect offer into just the right person’s hands, they still need to take action to respond. They need to call someone, go to a website, mail in a postage-paid card. This all requires effort, and too many times that piece of mail is set on a kitchen counter or buried in a pile on a desk because even though there was interest in the offer they couldn’t respond at that moment. There’s still no button we can put on a mail piece to let them respond — they have to do something.

There is unpredictable delivery time. You never know exactly when your mail is going to be delivered — you don’t even know what day, maybe not even what week.

Standard mail traveling across the country can be delivered in a couple of days… or a couple of weeks. It’s tricky to coordinate other marketing with it in a meaningful way.

Tying other channels to support your direct mail can help you leverage direct mail’s best qualities and mitigate its weak-

nesses. If you are a direct mail marketer, your direct mail will virtually always get better response rates if you can coordinate it with other channels.

Email coordinated with your direct mail can overcome the effort to respond to direct mail. If you can time an email to arrive on the same day the direct mail piece arrives, you give your prospect another opportunity to respond — right then and there with a click. If you have already captured their interest with the mail piece, you can capture their business with the same message reinforced in an email.

Of course this works best with customer or house lists where you already have a good percentage of emails. For those efforts where emails are available, our experience is that the email will boost response every time.

Coordinating other channels, in general, will boost response for a direct mail effort.

While coordinated marketing can’t exactly make direct mail less expensive, it can increase its chances for success. If you are making the considerable investment required to send direct mail, other channels can support it and improve response rates. Ads can be run on social media sites, like Facebook, coordinated to begin showing up as your mail is delivered, reinforcing your brand and the offer. IP targeting allows you to push web display ads to the IP addresses of many of your prospects, again to reinforce your brand and offer. Even without email addresses you can use many of these other marketing channels to better immerse your prospects in your brand and boost response.

A winning multi-channel campaign has direct mail at its core and a coordinated plan at the start. The essential elements of any successful marketing campaign are the same, but they become more apparent when you start trying to make channels work together. The essential elements of a campaign are: } The offer } The call to action } The landing page } The tools to coordinate it all.

Next time we’ll walk through creating your multi-channel campaign — step by step. ¾

DAVE LEWIS, President, SnailWorks, LLC can be reached at dlewis@snailworks.com. www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com | JULY-AUGUST 2016

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By Bruce Gresham

MAIL TO BURN Four ways you are wasting time, money, and resources in your production mail operation… and how to stop.

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e are all looking for ways to make our mail operations more efficient and provide greater value for our clients. Here are four common ways mail service providers are wasting time, money, and other valuable resources, as well as some practical advice for how to stop.

1.

You’re not learning from your undeliverable mail According to the USPS Office of Inspec42

JULY-AUGUST 2016 | www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com

tor General, more than 6.5 billion pieces of mail go “Undeliverable as Addressed” each year. That represents roughly 4.2% of all mail volumes and costs the mailing industry $20 billion in print and postage costs annually. When ancillary factors — such as late payments, delayed or lost revenue, loss of customers, and wasted overhead — are added to the equation, mailers begin to see the true insidious nature of the Return Mail problem.

There are no shortcuts to mitigating the impact of undeliverable mail. Relying on

the National Change of Address (NCOA) and Address Change Service (ACS) is not enough. Approximately 16-18% of US residents move each year, and only 60% notify the USPS. And while USPS Secure Destruction saves you the effort of handling the returned mail pieces, it doesn’t solve the root cause of the problem.

Ultimately, you need to find the right person and get the mail piece to them as efficiently as possible. You may need to find a business partner that can help handle the physical returns by pulling the data

from the front of the mail piece and finding the correct address using a myriad of data sources. It helps ensure you won’t make the same costly mistake twice and puts you on a path to cost-effectively replacing bad addresses with accurate ones.

2.

You’re still relying too heavily on manual processes Over decades, our industry has become increasingly automated. So much so that it is becoming more and more difficult for leading mailers to find material opportunities to speed production on their largest jobs. But also look around the margins. Look at some of your smaller jobs. What do you do, for example, with short run job requests from major clients? If you’re like most mailers, you either: decline the job and potentially upset your client; outsource the job and compromise integrity and profitability; or process the job manually, likely at a loss.

If this sounds familiar, you may want to invest in production mail equipment designed specifically to address these types of jobs. Compact new production mail machines that can reliably process short or long-run jobs across a wide range of formats are becoming more prevalent in the marketplace. These machines allow mailers to keep those “extra” jobs in-house, increasing automation and control over the production process.

They also enable the business to re-deploy workers to more profitable tasks and pursue new revenue-generating work from a wider range of clients.

in the production environment is having an equally profound impact.

Leveraging technology to establish an automated workflow and using real-time data to measure productivity are essential steps to help your business achieve operational excellence. Our clients are leveraging the power of the Industrial Internet to collect data from sensors on their production mail machines and send it to the cloud, where it can be benchmarked against the performance of leading print and mail service providers from around the world. The data is then used to support real-time insight, predictive analytics, and prescriptive maintenance, leading to increased productivity.

have to decide what you’re willing to be “bad” at, and organize your strategy and culture around those decisions.

Applying this principle to our own industry, we have identified four core capabilities from which print and mail operations can develop a competitive advantage: } Operational Excellence } Industry Leading Compliance } Higher-Value Communication } Omnichannel Customer Engagement The catch is, you can’t be “great” in all of these areas at the same time. You must choose. We find the most successful print and mail operations identify which of these areas is their “base capability” and develop that area of their business to the maximum. We then encourage them to find no more than one or two additional areas to develop into a new competitive advantage.

Businesses cannot be all things to all clients.

Choose your core capability carefully and pour your resources into it.

By taking an honest accounting of your mail operation, focusing on your core capabilities, and embracing the latest innovations in physical and digital technology, you can achieve measurable savings in time, money and resources, while strengthening your competitive advantages in the marketplace. ¾

Leveraging technology to establish an automated workflow and using real-time data to measure productivity are essential steps to help your business achieve operational excellence.

3.

You’re too slow to embrace new technologies When analysts discuss the impact of digital disruption on the mail industry, they tend to focus on the convergence of physical and digital communication channels and the importance of designing mail solutions in the context of an omni-channel customer experience. This is important, but the convergence of physical and digital communications is not the only digital disruption shaping our industry. The convergence of physical and digital technologies

Using analytics tools to optimize postage spend, and then sending mail that does not qualify for the five-digit rate to a commingle service provider, is an effective way mailers should leverage technology to save money. Postage, after all, accounts for 75% or more of the cost to produce and deliver a mail piece, so every fraction of a penny counts.

4.

You’re trying to do too much Frances Frei, a professor in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School and author of the best-selling book, Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business, coined the concept, “In order to be great, you have to be bad.”

She believes in attempting to excel at everything, businesses ensure “exhaustive mediocrity.” You have to decide what to focus on, where to channel your energy and resources and, in order to do so, you also

BRUCE GRESHAM is Vice President, Product Management and Strategy for Pitney Bowes Presort Services. Pitney Bowes is a global technology company, offering innovative products and solutions that enable commerce in the areas of customer information management, location intelligence, customer engagement, shipping and mailing, and global ecommerce. With a network of more than 30 operating centers across the US, Pitney Bowes Presort Services processes more than 15 billion pieces of mail per year and is the USPS’ largest workshare partner. Follow him @BPGresham or visit www.pitneybowes. com for more information. www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com | JULY-AUGUST 2016

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THE IMPACT OF THE

ENVELOPE THE SEEMINGLY INSIGNIFICANT” X-FACTOR” AND HOW IT AFFECTS YOUR BOTTOM LINE.

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nvelopes play a huge part in delivering our important messages. Think about the Academy Awards: “The envelope, please.” When you received that all-important college letter of acceptance. Perhaps a birthday card from Grandma? All are memorable life messages delivered in an envelope.

To provide a sense of just how long the envelope has been around, history tells us it was used by the Babylonians in 2000 BC to protect important documents and, quite possibly, letters. The first envelopes were clay wrappers. Clay in its “plastic state” was folded over the message, crimped shut

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and then baked. This envelope provided the ultimate security as it had to be completely destroyed to gain access to the message within.

There is even evidence of envelope usage dating back to biblical times. In the Book of Esther, King Ahasuerus summoned his queen Vashti to witness his gathering of princes and nobles from across the land. She refused to attend. The king was furious and, determining not to allow such disobedience, a new law was made. The proclamation was created and sent out in every language stating that “men should bare rule in their house, and women should obey.” Queen Vashti was promptly removed and

By Kathy Battin & Crystal May Esther became the new queen! You might say that Esther was, in effect, the first to benefit from a direct mail campaign.

In 1775, before the Postal Regulatory Commission and shape-based pricing, the first postal envelope was nothing more than folded sheets of paper. Postage was based on distance and letter size. For example, a single sheet of paper (letter) cost 11 pence (22 cents) to mail from Boston to Philadelphia.

Today we have hundreds of envelope choices to explore and choose from. Before deciding, you must be mindful of important factors that impact postal regulations including size, color, machinability, window position, and correct BRE setup. These are just a few factors to consider if you want your envelope choice to have optimum processing speed as well as lowest postage costs.

Machinability Machinability standards are different for each inserter manufacturer and vary with each model. There are implications if you ignore flap angles, throat depth, seams, or paper weight. Consider this: You are processing a quarterly mailing of 100,000 statements. This mailing has to be completed in two shifts when suddenly the new pallet of envelopes you are using begins to jam. What are the cost implications? Now your previous inserting speed of 12,000/hr is reduced to 3,000/hr. You discover that “the purchasing team got a good deal on these envelopes,” but, unfortunately, they do not meet your inserting equipment specs. A job that should have taken 10 hours now takes 25 hours to complete and you miss the deadline. When you add up the cost of overtime, missed SLA, and material waste, the figures do not come close to the savings anticipated by going with a less expensive envelope.

This situation can be prevented when you set up processes to include communication to collaborate with procurement, marketing, and envelope and hardware vendors to ensure the envelopes you are using meet your specific equipment requirements.

KEY PRACTICE: Establish processes and keep a file of approved envelope specifications to be followed for reordering.

What About Size and Envelope Color?

Do these factors matter when choosing an envelope? Absolutely! Let’s say your company’s marketing department has a great idea for a holiday card. They choose a square dark red paper color envelope. The shape does not fit inserting machine specs, so you are forced to hand insert. Your meter only uses red ink for postage evidencing, so now each envelope has to be stamped.

And there is not enough contrast between the envelope color and black inkjet address, so you have to use white labels that are hand applied. Not only does it take longer to process, but a square envelope is not compatible with USPS shaped-based letter size rates and is out of aspect ratio. Your postage rate is almost .22/piece higher than was budgeted. What a nightmare!

costs were not lining up with the budgeted postage projections for the campaign. In reviewing the envelopes, it was discovered that the company was enrolled in the QBRM program, but the mail center printed the ZIP+4 and IMb for postcard size onto a #9 BRE. This mistake created the 2% USPS processing error threshold, and the envelopes were removed from the QBRM program.

This discount program removal increased their return postage costs by 42 cents each!

KEY PRACTICE: This scenario could have been prevented with better communication at the start of the project design long before it arrives in the mail center for processing. Marketing should be provided with the USPS templates showing dimensional standards for letter size mail rates as well a checklist/proofing process to verify material postal compliance.

Security Tint Lining for Envelopes These tints protect confidential client information/data as well as improve customer confidence. Tints can be custom-printed with your company logo, which also prevents “rouge” printing by unauthorized personnel who do not have complete access to your approved envelope specifications.

Window Envelopes Present Opportunities for Material Costs Savings if Used Correctly Work with your envelope manufacturer and equipment vendor to ensure the window material has clean edges where the glassine/plastic is adhered to the paper, and test the envelope for machinability.

KEY PRACTICE: Consult your data and/or the document creation team to help you determine the correct window size. Have them create sample test records with the longest and deepest address block including keylines, OEL, and barcode to ensure it fits the window and passes the tap test.

Are You Planning to Include a BRE (Business Reply Envelope) with Your Outgoing Promotions?

If created properly, it is a wonderful, cost-effective tool for quick accurate response.

Design compliance is crucial for optimum postal processing and correct BRE costs.

Take, for example, Company A. Its postage

KEY PRACTICE: To avoid these errors, you should designate one person within your company to manage your BRM program. Engage your USPS design analysis for help, and require all reply pieces go through a QC review for postal compliance before printing.

KEY PRACTICE: To maintain consistency, keep your envelope contents secure, and ensure your corporate identity is intact as designed, have one person on your team responsible to oversee this process.

The goal of a mailing is to reach the customer with a message that appeals to their needs, generates a response, and is delivered in a timely fashion meeting USPS processing standards at the most efficient postage rates possible. This is not only attainable but sustainable if you are mindful of the envelope manufacturing requirements necessary for success and establish processes accordingly. You may not win an Oscar for your efforts, but the contribution to your company’s communications will be invaluable. ¾

KATHY BATTIN, CMDSM, MDC, MDP, CDMP, is VP Postal Affairs & Project Management, and Crystal May, MCMP, QPP, MQC, MDP, is Senior VP, Consulting & Solution Design, Postal Source. www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com | JULY-AUGUST 2016

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