40 ■ October 5, 2010 • GRAPH EXPO


Official Show Daily • Cygnus Graphics Media


New Jersey Commercial Shop Expands With Envelope Niche


More profit, increased versatility, and ease-of-use with Xanté Ilumina digital press installation E


mail may be a mainstay form of communication for some, but even today, for the majority of wedding invita-


tions, Bar and Bat Mitzvah, Sweet Six- teen, and related party invitations, birth announcements and the like, US Postal Service “snail mail” and the printed envelope still rein. That’s why printing envelopes, and doing so cost-effectively, remains a bread-and-butter activity for 26-year- old, full-service printing and copying center, Word Center Printing in Ham- ilton, NJ. Owned by Marilyn and Jerry Silverman, this small but busy shop serving Mercer County specializes in producing highly-creative, bright, col- orful stationery, invitations, announce- ments, postcards and related items. According to Marilyn Silverman,


one of her company’s largest customers is a medical practice with 32 offices in New York and New Jersey. Indi- vidual practice sites send her orders for stationary envelopes every day, amounting to thousands of window and regular envelopes each month. Each envelope is printed with a two-color logo that has tight press registration requirements in the corner, as well as


the address of the individual practice printed below it in black. Since the Silverman’s did not own


a two-color press, they used to send the envelopes out for pre-printing of the logo and then printed the indi- vidual address in-house. In order to accommodate the fast turnaround their customer had come to expect, they had to stock inventory for each medical office. Unfortunately, this meant that when the customer closed or moved an office they’d be stuck with the excess.


Finding a solution But at an exhibition in 2009, they found their solution: the Xanté Ilumina (Booth 201) digital envelope press. They promptly ordered one. When the machine arrived they installed it them- selves and haven’t looked back since. The Xanté Ilumina digital envelope press has not only helped Word Center Printing increase the efficiency and profitability of jobs for existing cus- tomers, it has also helped the company expand the kinds of jobs it produces with the machine, thereby increasing their versatility and creative options. Says Silverman, “This afternoon I printed advertising door hangers on it,


using a special 8.5 inch x 11 inch precut sheet that I fed through the multipurpose input tray. I also ran an 11x17” poster through the same tray. On a lot of color copiers this kind of job can jam, but because the Xanté has a straight paper path


the stock


goes through easily.” Silverman figures that the Xanté Ilumina digital envelope press paid for itself in six months. It has enabled the company to handle many more jobs in-house than it could before. The Silvermans can use it for full-color let- terhead, which they used to send out. And whereas they used to send out a lot of thermography, the glossy sheen of the ink has given them an attractive and less expensive alternative to offer customers, allowing them to pocket more of the profit as well by producing those jobs in-house.


“I use samples from the machine


to actively solicit new business at the many networking opportunities I pur-


The Xanté Ilumina digital envelope press has helped Word Center Printing increase product options, says Marilyn Silverman (shown).


sue,” says Marilyn Silverman. “The Xanté makes it easier to get new busi- ness; I have interesting, high quality samples to show, I can produce them in-house, turn them around quickly and offer reasonable prices.” And although sales were down about 10% in 2009, many of their competi- tors were down much more. “As one of our major customers goes to electronic medical records they’re printing a lot less, but we made it up with new busi- ness and we have the Xanté press to thank for that,” she concludes.


“


ry, test and measure” is a clas- sic marketing mantra; and today, banks of every size may try Transpromo applications on a small scale, according to Pitney Bowes (Booth 3601) marketing direc- tor Ronaldva Hees. Trial results guide marketers as to how best to extend Transpromo activities.


Transpromo—It’s Money in the Bank T


The technology is there, now it’s time for corporate attitudes to follow suit


The major obstacle to widespread industry implementation of Transpromo is no longer technology. The stumbling block is attitudinal—an upsetting of the status quo that demands true integration from departments that have become used to operating in blissful isolation. At one end sits IT and finance, at the other, marketing—departments not nec- essarily used to working in harmony. It is precisely this integration challenge that makes the “try, test and measure” approach so valuable. What better way of convincing peers of the success of this new approach than by demonstrat- ing and measuring it? The cyclical nature of transactional


documents provides the ideal ‘sticky’ vehicle for marketing messages. Pitney Bowes research reveals that European consumers spend an average of just over three-and-a-half minutes reading their monthly printed bank statement, com- pared to just under two minutes reading a piece of direct mail that is targeted towards them. Additionally, printed statements are retained for longer peri- ods of time than direct mail, meaning that any marketing message added to a statement has the dual advantage of gaining more immediate attention and of being reinforced again when the state- ment is reviewed. Traditionally, the statement produc-


tion cycle has been viewed as a neces- sary cost burden, but Transpromo turns this outlook on its head. Adding mar- keting messages to transactional docu- ments that are already being sent trans- forms the statement into a communi- cation with the potential to generate significant revenue over the lifetime of a satisfied customer. In the past, focus


was on the cost per mail piece. Today, managers are seeking to measure cost per response as well as customer loy- alty and retention. Transpromo can deliver marketing messages that are just as personal and relevant as the transaction information enclosed. As relevance increases, profits can, too.


Exciting capabilities Today’s software tools are bring-


ing truly exciting capabilities to the humble statement. This vast potential sometimes leads suppliers to run too fast—to wow customers with the pos- sibilities when they should be simply looking to move into first gear. Equal- ly, if marketers are to make a compel- ling case for Transpromo, a vision of the potential roadmap is essential. Transpromo leverages data integra- tion for personalization. In the world of data integration, there is particular excitement around the subject of loca- tion intelligence. For Transpromo, the potential is clear. Statements can carry


marketing messages that are finely tuned to appeal to a particular group within a particular location. For example, a bank might identify a segment of its custom- ers living in rented accommodation and target them with messaging around first- time mortgages. Now, the potential of the monthly statement as a core revenue generator truly comes to life. While the potential of Transpromo


is exciting, some are understand- ably wary of what such a solution might cost. However, any enterprise producing regular statement runs is already in position to take the next step. The best solution providers will work with existing systems to slowly build Transpromo capabilities layer by layer. Testing the technique with a small group of customers provides the necessary ROI evidence to convince stakeholder peers to scale the solution upwards. For these powerful applica- tions to really take hold, we must think of it less as ‘Transpromo’ and more as money in the bank.


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