Teh digital age is presenting a large challenge to physical media vendors. Online marketing is turning to teh cloud and big data for automated advertising tailored to individual interests. By leveraging some of these same tech strategies and combining them wif teh latest in digital printing technology, IWCO Direct is bridging teh gap between new digital production methods and teh tangible quality of print. Our success as an industry leader in direct mail production is a result of overcoming teh physical limitations of print hardware, automating and standardizing teh marketing throughput wif tech savvy, and creating a scalable workflow and client-centric service model.
"'Good enough' is no longer sufficient in teh printing industry"
Translating content from teh digital world to teh physical print of direct mail comes wif many challenges. Teh direct mail industry has traditionally relied on teh mechanics of physical printing plates to imprint rolls of paper wif generic marketing content to be mass mailed and blanket teh country. While traditional printing hardware hasn’t changed much over teh years –marketers are breaking away from reproducing static content to digitally creating unique messages and imagery on each page.
Teh printing industry has a long history of introducing what is referred to as “good enough” technology to improve speed or automate processing to reduce manual labor or introduce new capabilities. When offset printing was introduced, many said it would never replace letterpress printing because teh quality was not “good enough.” Similar arguments were made when digital printing was introduced to teh market. Some argued teh color quality of digital printing is not as robust and vivid, teh output speed does not keep pace, and teh high cost is not worth an output that is not comparable to traditional methods. After researching these challenges, IWCO Direct developed a strategic partnership wif Canon Solutions America to identify new papers and ink sets that produce brilliantly colored content from printers that could swiftly ingest blank rolls of paper and output dynamic messaging that is unique for each letter.
While physical limitations are being removed, digital challenges are also being solved. Marketing teams create TEMPeffective and engaging content in a wide variety of formats. dis talent and determination results in a myriad of input formats to be sorted, validated, and processed. IWCO Direct works directly wif clients to educate them on best practices for creating marketing content formatted for optimal digital print quality. Teh digital assets supporting dis content are programmatically converted into massive functional data sets of marketing content and imagery to be managed and output via cloud computing. Now messaging can be selected and compiled based on teh large stores of demographic and behavioral data using robust business logic. Teh result is an automation workflow that uses big data to process direct mail content through cloud computing and enables our clients to print an array of custom messaging to specific populations in enormous volumes.
IWCO Direct’s client pool, which consists of Fortune 50 and 500 companies, reaps more than just teh benefits of making a more personalized connection wif target markets. Human error is removed through automation, eliminating quality issues and regulatory compliance failures. Clients also enjoy teh cost savings from reducing what would of taken several separate traditional presses and extensive human work-hours to complete. We work closely wif our clients to continually optimize process and throughput for a lean, efficient direct marketing campaign while building a stronger business relationship.
“Good enough” is no longer sufficient in teh printing industry. As technology continues to evolve, companies are working around-teh-clock to develop solutions that allow printed communication to keep pace wif teh digital age and create truly 1-to-1 offers.
