Category Archive

Direct mailers are heavily invested in inkjet. In the US 42% of direct mail page volume runs on inkjet – that’s only 6% behind offset and growing. Now, commercial printers

Whether you are working on direct mail or transaction printing, designing for ease of navigation and to deliver a clear message is just as important as the color scheme or graphics used. Each color carries a message or an emotion and will provoke a response. Choosing the colors to support the intended tone of the mailing is important – particularly when there is a call to action that needs emphasis.

Whether it is a website, email or direct mail campaign, catalog or postcard, always design with a purpose. Every word, color, font and material should have a purpose and intent.  They need to communicate your message. This is what separates good design from bad.

Mike Herold, Director Global Marketing, Production Inkjet Technologies at RICOH talks about the cost benefits that inkjet brought to the transaction printing industry over the past decade and the increasing pressure that transaction printers face as inkjet has evolved into new markets.

Action Mailers, a major, family-owned, direct mail provider located near Philadelphia has completed the latest upgrade in their multi-phase transition from toner to inkjet. Marc Hoy shares lessons learned and the key benefits they have found from their investment.

Our most recent white paper, sponsored by RICOH, examines the many factors that combine to create a quality inkjet solution for a particular market need. The production workflow and quality sensitivity varies significantly from one application segment to another. While some companies may be replacing one technology platform with another, others are challenged to maintain compatibility between inkjet and toner or offset platforms.

Ralf Schlozer provides an overview of the direct mail market in Europe and the impact of regionalization, postal regulations and GDPR on inkjet adoption. He also defines trends affecting the market for 2020.

Offering new ideas to your organization while leveraging the USPS promotions may set the stage for positive change in 2020. Using inkjet platforms to enable print mail operations to enhance the usefulness of mail and take advantage of the various USPS promotions, while delivering value to consumers and postage savings to their organizations. A win, win, win.

Ralf Schlözer, EU correspondent for Inkjet Insight provides the first in a series covering inkjet in Europe. Here’s an overview of inkjet market for transaction printing key market trends in individual countries. Welcome, Ralf.

Most inkjet applications require paper. For many reasons, compatible inkjet paper is in short supply. If you are involved in the inkjet print supply chain, or a buyer of the finished product, it is in your best interest to help clear hurdles to identify and qualify compatible papers and to communicate availability as efficiently as possible.

While every workflow should be unique to the service provider, thinking of the workflow solution as unique to a particular application segment can limit a company in terms of their workflow design and potential for page growth on their inkjet device(s). Designing reusable components within your workflow, and “stubbing in” steps for other types of work you may do in the future, will make your workflow system more flexible, extensible and auditable.

Alex Joos of Group Joos, located in Belgium, joins us for a deeper dive into their use of inkjet across multiple operations. Group Joos provides transaction printing and direct mail services to a very diverse market using inkjet across all areas.

Is inkjet eating toner’s lunch? In some areas, yes. But, as long as there are many types of print organizations, there will be a need for many types of printing devices. One size does not fit all. Your mileage may vary. Definitely see the dealer for details.

Dave Phillips of Paragon Customer Communications is back with more details on 2 very different UK sites where cutting edge inkjet equipment coexists with some more “old school” tech. Dave provides insight on working with inkjet and coated paper, best fit of different inkjet technologies and the implications of GDPR requirements for transaction printers and direct mailers.

Dave Phillips, Site Director for Paragon Customer Communications has a lot to say about the global printing market and where inkjet fits. In part 1 of this series, Dave provides an overview of the Paragon global footprint spanning 45 countries and the distinct approaches of their 2 UK sites.

The current challenges with online advertising underscore the need for print including direct mail, on-statement marketing and point-of-purchase advertising to drive marketing return on investment. Inkjet is a key player in this mix.

Inkjet Insight maps out I.T. Strategies North American print volume data to explore opportunities for production inkjet technologies. The map looks packaging, publishing, and document application categories. Production inkjet has been successful with applications that have light ink coverage printed on uncoated stocks … namely, transactional, direct mail, and some book applications. Many of these applications were converted from high-speed roll-fed toner devices and inkjet provided economic and process benefits and by adding color. Inkjet also provided the ability to add value to printed pages. It’s useful to look at the entire market to help put this area of success in perspective and to think about the requirements for expanding adoption.

Printing from the first tower allows ink twice as long to dry helping reduce roller build up and print defects in finishing.

If you are using inkjet coated or primed offset coated paper, different papers will have different porosity levels on each side of the sheet.

2019 Personalized Color Transpromo Promotion   US Postal service is encouraging mailers of color messaging to sign up for the discount mailing promotion.  They are offering an upfront postage discount to