Back when I began my service bureau career, we were all about batch processing. It was the era of big iron where we wrote custom programs that executed on mainframe computers and generated mou
Eleven years ago, I wrote an article for this magazine about the document industry's environmental efforts. The article pointed out that during a recession, economic strategies were likely to
Almost all business units in today's corporations are looking to automate their processes as much as possible. COVID-19 taught us that relying on human-dependent manual tasks made it difficult to car
You may describe the company for which you work as being in the printing business, or the mailing business. “Marketing services provider” might describe your employer, or perhaps simply...
In the days of offset print, unintelligent mail inserting machines, and COBOL document generation programs, sending every customer the same generic information was all print and mail professio
Inserts (bill stuffers) have been a mainstay of transactional documents like bills and statements for a long time. But it’s time to reconsider inserts as a way to deliver offers and messages to cust
Most people would agree that an envelope's purpose is safely transporting the contents from sender to recipient. But the envelope has another important job — getting opened! Magazine and cata
Dimensional direct mail marketing, packages that have a third-dimensional aspect in addition to the length and width of a letter or postcard, enjoy outstanding conversion rates. These pieces s
What if there was a customer communication technology that guaranteed consistent formatting and presentation of your documents, regardless of the devices owned by your customers? Screen size w
In many corporate mail centers, the handling of inbound mail is still a mostly manual operation. Clerks look at packages, flats, letters, and magazines and sort them down to courier routes. Su
"If I'm not in the document business," you might say, "How do you explain the pallets full of paper and envelopes sitting all over my shop?" OK, that’s a reasonable question. W
Companies are focusing on customer experience and the customer journey, and more of them are working on creating a single customer view, but their efforts don't always include mailed communic
The coronavirus has made a mess of the employment landscape, but companies in the print and mail industry can’t afford to sit around and wait for things to get back to normal. No one knows h
Data enhancement means adding value to data you'll be using to produce and mail documents processed through your print and mail center. In most shops, data enhancement ends with correcting po
Lowering the cost to produce and mail transactional customer communications has always been a focus for in-plant and outsource print/mail service providers. Finding ways to reduce postage and
I’m a big believer in content marketing — the practice of attracting leads and nurturing them from introduction through purchase by creating and distributing informational content composed
Customers view print and mail service providers as interchangeable. When they do that, the only distinguishing factor from the customer point of view is price, which means outsource service pr
For decades, companies have struggled with the best way to create and distribute business documents. Should they print, mail, and distribute digital communications themselves or outsource the
When was the last time your mail center employees got recognized for their efforts that enable cash flow, support customer retention, or attract new customers to the business? This group of de
Do mailing jobs where clients aren’t concerned with the disposition of each mail piece still exist? If so, I suspect they are disappearing. Other than saturation-type mailings or Every Door