Direct Mail Makes a Statement

Value-added opportunities arise as customers increase demand for unique, personalized products

By Eric Fiedler

It's no wonder postal workers are among the most disgruntled of the nation's masses—each direct mail sale means more work for them.

Direct mail sales have been on the rise for more than a decade—at a clip of about 7 percent per year—and show no signs of stopping.

"There will be some changes in the frequency or the size and weight of the pieces that are mailed out after the postal increase in January, but I do not believe the opportunities will decline for a long time," said Lee DeMattia, marketing manager for TRANSKRIT®, Roanoke, Va.

However, along with these opportunities come new demands for unique products and increasingly complex jobs that will help a piece stand out in the pile of mail people receive daily.

To help quench customers' thirst for unique products, TRANSKRIT invested in an assembly line of new equipment. "We purchased an offline finishing system which allows us to do some unique folds and perfs and die-cuts with repositionable adhesives," said DeMattia.

Vanguard ID Systems, Exton, Pa., offers mailers that combine a direct mail announcement with a choice of any one of its cards, key tags, Family Paks or Short Pak products. "We have seen great interest from our customers because we offer some things our competitors don't," said Marcia Carnes, a national sales representative at Vanguard.

Vanguard also offers variable data in multiple languages, graphic changes on the fly and one pass duplex printing.

GBF Graphics, Skokie, Ill., recently added a Versimar 300x600 dpi resolution high-speed ink jet printer to produce medium- to higher-end pieces.

"In addition to a variety of equipment and technologies to do personalization, we have some fairly sophisticated finishing equipment that we designed ourselves that allows us to do specialty folded and die-cut products," said Bob Blohm, technical production manager for GBF.