My how things have changed in printing. It used to be that a customer took their job to the printer and the printer told them when they could come back and get it. The digital age has changed even the way that printers receive the jobs. It is downloaded from an FTP site or uploaded to the printer’s FTP site. Sometimes the file is emailed to the printer along with the mailing list. The customer never has to leave their office. A proof is sent to the customer and mailed at usually the date the customer has requested. What you can’t mail it today? What is so funny, is that sometimes we do print and mail it the same day, although that is not the norm. It is good for the ink to dry before addressing. That sort of thing usually happens when we are in the middle of political season. I just love political season, it is even better to me than deer hunting season is to the good ole boys who hunt in Tennessee. Create the political mailer, print it and mail it..all at a very fast pace. Yee haw! Several years we had a bumper sticker to print and the ink was not drying fast enough. It was a sunny day so we laid the bumper stickers out in the vacant flat lot that we own next door and let them dry in the sun. We were able to deliver the job, on time in a few hours later. I have a picture of that somewhere. I got carried away with that political thing didn’t I?
The things that printers need besides a good printing department is graphic design, copywriter/editors, list acqusition, database management, and what I think is most important is mailing. Mailing has certainly been good for my company and I think good for my customers. Having all those services is like running three businesses in one. The nice thing is that they all are integrated nicely with each other and the work flow is much easier when they are all under one roof.
We could ask my husband, Ken, what it was like to be in printing when he started out 46 years ago but unless you are close to his age, you probably wouldn’t believe it. We are both glad that things have changed, for the better, in printing. These changes have allowed us to have a unique business.
