Mar 9, 2007
Postage Rising – Part 2
Part one of this OutputLinks series on rising postage costs looked at what companies can do to prepare for the upcoming postage rate increase. Now, OutputLinks speaks with its distinguished panel of experts to learn about products, services and tips to manage the process and generate bigger results.
For Pitney Bowes, the postage rate case is not about a proposed three-cent increase in the cost of a stamp; It’s about how mail operators could be using those three cents more effectively to connect with customers, grow business and improve profits.
Pitney Bowes is one company that provides the software, the equipment, the processes and the know-how to work the new postal rules to help save millions of dollars. “We also help to build a strategic framework that provides long-lasting benefits throughout the entire enterprise,” says Pitney Bowes.
“In simplest terms, converting flat mail to letter-sized mail is one of the easiest ways to cut costs and mitigate the proposed rate increase,” says Pitney Bowes. “For a quick ROI fix, a heavy-duty folder combined with an intelligent inserting system can provide the high-speed, automatic feeding and folding required to transform documents into a size appropriate for a 6” x 9” letter---all with a single fold. It delivers postage savings, and increased speed and productivity.”
Pitney Bowes says that the key to a successful implementation involves production intelligence, which ensures that every communication is produced as accurately and efficiently as possible. Some of the proven best practices in this field, according to Pitney Bowes, includes:
· Distributed Output Management, which provides the ability to divert printstreams to the most efficient output device – anywhere in the world.
· Audit-controlled Processing, which ensures that document integrity is maintained, for each and every communication.
· Modular Inserting Systems that offer the flexibility to quickly move from one job to the next, minimizing downtime.
· Cross-plant Visibility that allows you to view, analyze and manage print and mail production across an entire enterprise through a single dashboard.
· Real-time Address Validation. Data entry accounts for approximately 40 percent of data quality problems. But keeping bad address data out of your databases can be easily accomplished, whether addresses are keyed in by customer service reps, order entry clerks, sales professionals---or even customers themselves. Today, you can integrate software that captures, corrects and verifies address data in real-time---effectively dealing with this issue before it becomes a problem.
· Closed-loop Address Management Practices. Even with stronger data entry, customers move (17 percent annually) and some addresses simply change (including over 650,000 ZIP+4 changes every year.) Prior to mailing, you should be using a move update solution that interfaces directly with the USPS NCOA data. Afterwards, you can capture additional updates on the back-end through OneCode ACS.
· Qualifying for Automation Rates, which may become more challenging with two new requirements scheduled to become effective in August 2007 as part of CASS Cycle L.
· Delivery Point Validation. The existence of a primary address must be validated using the USPS DPV file---validating a range of addresses will no longer be accepted.
· Locatable Address Conversions. LACSLink processing is a proposed new requirement. Among other benefits, this converts rural route and box numbers to city-style addresses.
Océ
Guy Broadhurst, director of product marketing at Océ North America's Commercial Printing Division, says one way to get more “bang for your buck”, especially as rates rise, is to optimize your mailings with variable data to create a more targeted conversation with recipients. “Variable content in transaction documents enables mailers to achieve much better results,” he says. “Océ digital production-class printers and Océ PRISMA™ workflow software provide the tools mailers need to leverage the power of personalization to make communications more effective.”
For example, the Océ VarioStream® 9000 and 7000 families of continuous feed printers offer direct mailers and service bureaus high-powered digital capacity to produce highly personalized documents at production speed. And, for high-volume cut sheet applications, the Océ VarioPrint® 6250 digital duplex cut sheet printer is an ideal solution. “When the Océ VarioPrint 6250 combines with software like Océ Document Designer Advanced, it simplifies personalization and supports comprehensive data input, design, composition and output, enabling mailers to create attractive, highly customized documents that engage readers in a one-to-one dialog,” says Broadhurst.
And by combining powerful digital printers with intelligent software like Océ Document Designer Advanced, print-to-mail operations have the tools they need to produce smaller, but more targeted and effective mailings that leverage variable text and images to generate higher response rates.
“As expected, Océ equipment is designed to correctly image all USPS authorized barcodes including both PostNet and Planet Codes, adds Broadhurst. “The Planet Code is an additional barcode that is part of the USPS's Confirm program. Confirm tracks Planet Codes every time they pass through a barcode sorter. The Planet Code identifies the mailer, and the scanning data is transmitted to account holders.”
BÖWE BELL + HOWELL
BÖWE BELL + HOWELL's One ReCompose print stream manipulation software allows mailers to modify the data in one or more print files without having to re-engineer a legacy billing or statement application. “This includes the ability to cleanse addresses and add delivery point barcodes, sort files based on postal rules, merge files for higher densities, and dynamically reposition data to change from one format, such as flats, to another,” says Mark Van Gorp, vice president, business development, BÖWE BELL + HOWELL.
Mailers can also use the advanced vision capabilities of JETVision to test the quality and postal processing efficiency of a mailpiece. “JETVision uses similar testing criteria and procedures as the current MERLIN program running in the USPS,” says Van Gorp. “A sample list of the postal checks include code readability, code and address block positioning, package dimensioning, and many others.”
Van Gorp says that with the BÖWE BELL + HOWELL FlexiSort high-speed sorter, mailers can process flats and letter-class mail, allowing customers the flexibility to use the machine for additional letter capacity when the machine is not being used to sort flats.
But for customers looking to maximize five-digit qualification for their commingled mail, the modular design of BÖWE BELL + HOWELL’s Criterion and X-Class sort bins makes the addition of additional bins an economical option. “Bins can be added at the end of the machine, or for one- or two-tiered machines, bins can be added above the existing bins---making it possible to increase the number of bins without increasing the length of the machine,” says Van Gorp.
BÖWE BELL + HOWELL’s back-end automation solutions include bin-sorting systems, which can be mounted on the back end of an inserter, allowing mailers with high-density ZIP codes to sort in-house directly off of the inserters. And the BBH DemandWorks Booklet Maker systems enable mailers to move to next-generation formats. “The Booklet Maker system can be configured with high-speed feeders that can accept cut-sheet, continuous (roll or fan-fold), digital and offset-printed input. This versatility enables the systems to produce letter- or flats-sized booklets with ease,” says Van Gorp.
Rochester Software Associates
Rochester Software Associates, Inc. offers variable data personalization through its WebCRD, RSA’s Portal to the Print Center. “Our template-based ordering empowers individuals to order personalized versions of approved corporate templates such as sell sheets, postcards and proposals, making all documents and especially mailings, more valuable to the customer and more effective for the enterprise,” says AnnMarie Link, product marketing manager, Rochester Software Associates, Inc.
Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group
Jeffrey Hayzlett, chief marketing officer, Kodak's Graphic Communications Group, says Kodak has a wide range of printing systems solutions covering every speed requirement and every type of application from high-speed roll-fed full-color inkjet for bills and statements, using the KODAK VERSAMARK Printing Solutions, to cut-sheet full-color electrophotographic printing on a wide variety of paper types using the KODAK NEXPRESS Digital Production Color Presses. “No matter what state your current legacy printing environment is in, Kodak has workflow and printing solutions to prepare you for the most efficient approach to the new postal rates,” says Hayzlett.
Kern
And Kern is a partner that has answers. “With advanced print stream processing in mailFactory PROStream, the postal sorting and reporting in mailFactory Postal Reporter, and the flexibility and performance built into every Kern production inserting system, more and more major mailers are choosing Kern as their end-to-end production partner,” shares Dave Squires, vice president of marketing, Kern
Personix
And according to Jeff Richards, senior vice president at Personix, his company acts in a consultancy role to its existing clients relative to the rate increases by helping them model the impact of the rate increase, using their existing mail piece design and suggesting alternatives to minimizing the overall postage spend.
For more valuable insight on mail, click here for a brochure from Personix. http://www.outputlinks.com/uploads/personix_sellsheet_mail.pdf
Barr Systems
Pate Cantrell, vice president of sales and marketing, Barr Systems, points to two solutions from his company that help make bulk mailing a breeze. “Our variable printing solution is a powerful, yet easy-to-use software tool for the design, dynamic creation, and real-time delivery of electronic documents for any industry,” says Cantrell. “With it, you can create marketing materials, customized direct mailings, barcodes---for streamlining postage sorting---and much more. But more importantly, the integrated Postal Certification module provides a complete range of postal sorting and other processes with certified US Postal Service data.”
The core functions of Barr’s optional Postal Certification module include:
· ZIP + 4 adds the correct nine-digit ZIP Code and automatically fills in city and state data based upon ZIP Code entry, and standardizes address data using USPS preferred spellings and abbreviations.
· CASS (Coding Accuracy Support System) qualifies your fixed-weight mail for the lowest postal rates by correcting entire batches of addresses, printing the correct postal form, standardizing address spellings, and adding nine-digit ZIP Codes. It also checks the validity of individual mailing addresses.
· PAVE (Presort Accuracy, Validation and Evaluation) qualifies your mixed and fixed weight postal items such as first class, standard, and periodical mailings for the lowest possible postal rates. It does so by barcoding addresses, printing barcoded sack and tray tags, and by printing all required USPS documentation.
GMC
According to Hal Morrow, VP of marketing, GMC Software Technology, GMC’s PrintNet T Designer is used by various clients to create trans-promotional materials that allow them to add variable informational, educational, and marketing content to customer financial and investor statements based on specific demographics. “This not only improves the level of service they provide their customers, but enables them to point recipients to company web sites for additional information and/or incorporate marketing and informational messages into a single statement mailing for significant postal savings,” says Morrow.
GMC also offers a web-based interactive solution, PrintNet Interactive, for on-demand, one-to-one communications with customers, either in response to a specific customer request or as a highly targeted, outbound campaign. Morrow GMC’s Morrow says that PrintNet Interactive is currently being used by a major European insurer for on-demand client correspondence creation. “This has allowed them to control their communication content and branding as well as move the majority of externally destined print off their network lasers to high-volume, lower cost-per-page printers in their production print center,” he explains. “They have also deployed a ‘mailbox’ system where non-critical correspondence is collected over a five day period and bundled into a single envelope. This has resulted in substantial postage savings, as well as an increase in customer satisfaction since their customers receive one consolidated mailing a week, rather than mail pieces a day.”
Thank you to our panelists:
Pate Cantrell, vice president of sales and marketing, Barr Systems
Mark Van Gorp, vice president, business development, BÖWE BELL + HOWELL
Hal Morrow, VP of marketing, GMC Software Technology
Dave Squires, vice president of marketing for Kern
Jeffrey Hayzlett, chief marketing officer, Graphic Communications Group, Kodak
Guy Broadhurst, director of product marketing, Commercial Printing Division, Océ Digital Document Systems
Jeff Richards, senior vice president, Personix
Pitney Bowes
AnnMarie Link, product marketing manager, Rochester Software Associates, Inc.
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