Marketing experts know adding personalized color to a mail piece improves response rates and increases average purchase amounts. Unfortunately, shops cannot produce personalized material with their half-web presses. They have to pass the direct mail pieces through a secondary process or even worse, send the work to a competitor who can add the personalization that customers desire.

 

We have good news for print operations producing generic direct marketing pieces with half-web presses. They can now increase the value of their product with color personalization. With a modest investment and minor adjustments in workflow, printers can create a new revenue stream and improve customer loyalty. They also extend the revenue-generating lifespan of legacy equipment, providing an attractive alternative to large capital investments for digital printing technology.

 

Companies often run smaller jobs on their half-web presses. Moving work to wide format digital equipment is not economical for short runs. The best way to add personalization to these jobs is continuing to print the material on the half-web presses and adding the personalized portions inline.

 

New Life for Half-Web Presses

If your company is creating direct mail or other applications on a half-web press, such as the Harris M110, Document Data Solutions has made it easy to increase the value of the materials you print. Simultaneously, you'll retain the investment you've made in your web presses.

 

Our Hybrid Inkjet Solutions call for only half the number of print units that a full-width press would require. These digital inkjet devices for half-web presses allow printers to use demographic data to assign suitable graphics or photographs to individual documents. They can now personalize items such as membership cards or coupons with variable text or data-driven graphics.

Additionally, digitally printed images allow print service providers to connect direct mail to other personalized content delivered via digital online channels. Easy-to-use technologies such as Quick Response (QR) codes or Personalized URL's (PURL's) allow owners of half-web printers to support the multi-channel marketing campaigns their direct mail customers prefer.

 

Depending on the coverage desired, print service providers can add one or more modules to their presses. Each digital print module covers a width of 4.25 inches. These digital inkjet printing solutions take advantage of existing transports, so they demand no added hardware investment. Hybrid Inkjet  Modules from DDS are small, and they need little maintenance or specialized training to operate. 

 

Document Data Solutions also supplies color management tools. Even a novice user can match colors and achieve the best possible print quality.

 

Print service providers looking to expand their business should consider the benefits of hybrid digital printing systems.  It's a way to stay competitive in the market and keep the customer base from eroding because of inability to deliver desired functionality.

 

Not running any half-web equipment? The same DDS technology adds digital printing capability to full-width presses. See THIS ARTICLE for ideas on how personalized color can revolutionize your printing business, regardless of the equipment in your shop.