Directly Designed to Mail

When Stephen Denton of Private Healthcare Systems (PHCS), Wal-tham, Mass., called Steven Condon, an account executive with The Allied Group, Needham, Mass., he had a lot on his mind.

PHCS, a health-care cost-management company, meets the strategic, financial and quality needs of health-care purchasers by building and maintaining a cost-effective network of health-care providers, and by integrating state-of-the-market medical management services.

Denton needed to create what he called a "visually appealing and creatively designed" product to promote his company's Medical Management program. He envisioned something with "bold imagery, striking color, unique shaping and first-class printing" and decided that direct mail was the route to take.

Said Denton, "When our marketing department was strategizing on how to best promote our recently-enhanced system, we strongly believed that direct mail was the best medium for increasing product awareness."

After designing a direct mail piece that would "captivate the attention of 1,000 health-care executives who were considered strong prospects" for PHCS's Medical Management campaign, Denton looked to The Allied Group—an information managment company—to aid in production and fulfillment.

According to Condon, "PHCS wanted to make a piece that people would really notice. The company worked with us because we can do all of the printing and mailing for these types of projects." The Allied Group coordinated the project through production, proofing and ultimately mailing of the finished product.

Not surprisingly, the award-winning mailer was not easy to construct. Condon admits that there were a number of production challenges along the way.

Strict Color Matching

"We needed to match specific colors that PHCS had previously used on other materials, so we had to make sure that the color schemes on our presses matched those exactly," he said.

In addition to color matching, Condon said certain post-press functions proved challenging. "For example, we had to make sure that the mailer was folded properly to fit into the mailing envelope," he explained.