A Great Disturbance in the Force
As goes the famous quote by character Obi Wan Kenobi in the 1977 movie Star Wars, “I felt a great disturbance in the force”, so it is in the Direct Marketing Production business these days. Impact is on the move and involved in a revolutionary shift in technology that is sure to be disruptive to the industry.
The disruptive technology I speak of is a convergence of traditional printing technology with that of what for many years was the standard for personalization, laser printing. These processes were two separate processes, most often performed by different companies, usually a Printer and a Lettershop or Mailing companies. With the exception of the largest suppliers who could do both, most were two separate and distinct operations.
Recent advancements in technology and quality have brought high quality inkjet presses into the market that allows both operations to be run in line in the same workflow. Advancements in paper quality allowing better quality print on more paper stocks become available weekly. Impact went “all in” with a substantial investment in not one, but two of these presses and additional inline finishing equipment that would make many a printer envious. In fact one of these presses is so new and state of the art that there are only twelve in the world right now.
So what does this mean to marketers? Why should you care? Here are some of the advantages that should make you take notice:
- No need to print many small runs of preprinted forms; most can now be managed dynamically on press often times in larger mail streams.
- No need to worry about fine segmentation of versions and loss of postage discounts; dynamic printing and personalization allows you bigger runs with more variability and testing.
- No need to worry about obsolete stock; changing terms and conditions or interest rates can be changed rapidly right before printing with no destruction of obsolete forms.
- You no longer need to store pre-printed forms; print your forms and personalize them in real time, every time.
- No need to worry about delays with getting on press and waiting to get forms to the mailer; printing and personalization happen in same time and can cut days, sometimes weeks out of the production cycle.
Feedback from our clients and prospects has been very favorable and there is a new powerful force in the industry to be reckoned with, impact.
Want to learn more, give us a call. We love to talk technology solutions.
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