Month: May 2016

Political Mail

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We-want-your-campaign-graphic

Everyone moans when they hear the word political mail except me.  At Burns Mailing & Printing, Inc. we love political mail because it means an influx of printing and mailing.   We have been doing political mailings for years and are experienced and knowledgeable  about what politicians need and the quick turn around that is required for their campaign.

  • One stop for graphic design, printing and mailing.
  • Turn key estimates – including estimated postage.
  • List Clean up – FREE NCOAlink (NCOA National Change of Address) updates for our customers.
  • Duplicate Address checks.
  • Quick turn around.
  • Automated intelligent bar-code postal rates.
  • Specialty items such as door hangers, lapel stickers, posters, post cards, push cards, and yard signs.

Just remember when you are getting political mail that it is also helping a small local business.

Thankful For Freedom

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memorialday

This weekend will be a time to spend with family, travel or just enjoy the time off from work.  I have been doing some traveling in the past two years to Central America.  Central America is beautiful and the people are very friendly, but it is a reminder to me just how good we have it in the U.S.

Many of you have served in the military and I want to thank you for your service and dedication to our country. We are a blessed country and we need to remember that our freedom came at a great cost, as we honor those who, indeed,  gave it all.

Funny How Things Work Out Sometimes

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I get lots of word of mouth referrals and I love that.  However, last week it was the strangest one I have ever gotten.  We did a Canadian mailing and worked with a mailing company to take the mail into Canada for delivery.  Meantime a company in Morristown has used the same Canadian mailer and mentioned that she was going to do a large domestic mailing..  The Canadian mailer told her that she should call me.  She found me and I am delighted to be helping her with a printing and mailing for the U.S. and we will be printing the Canadian one for her as well.

Did I mention that I love referrals? If you have some send them my way.

Today I Am A Baker Not A Printer

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I took the day off today to bake cakes for my grandson, Sam’s High School graduation party tomorrow.  Baking is something I enjoy when I have someone to appreciate my efforts.  Sam really appreciates my baking and my pancakes.  He has been accepted in the honors program at UT.  As I sit here typing this blog, I am looking at a picture of him on my desk when he was about three, it is hard to believe he is headed off to college. He has grown into a fine young man and we are all proud of him.

THREE GOOD REASONS

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3-reasons-graphic-new-u424Years ago, a friend of mine and I had a small ad agency within Burns Mailing & Printing.  We were doing well, but my friend, got an offer from a large advertising agency in town.  After urging from Ken and I he took an offer that he could not refuse.  We have kept in touch and have lunch together occasionally.  One day he was here and I was trying to work on some of my marketing materials.  We were trying to come up with a tag line.  He said that it was obvious that it should be “three good reasons”.  The three good reasons are;

  • Graphic Design
  • Printing
  • Direct Mail Services

Those are three really good reasons to use Burns.  We can help plan the project from conception so that errors are not made in paper, size and USPS specifications.  Our graphic designers are very familiar with all the postal rules and regulations and design for postal efficiency.  From the graphics department it goes to printing (both digital and offset).  Our digital press can print post cards and address them at the same time for really quick turn-around time.  This is good for quantities of 5000 or under.

Finally our mailing department assists with mailing lists, NCOAlink updates, database management, Geo-Coding, addressing, inserting, invoice and statement processing and much more. So there you have it three very good reasons to let us help with your next project.

Mailing to Cuba

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I got an email from the United States Postal Service today regarding Priority International mail to Cuba.  It brought back memories of 1962 when I was first married and living in Cocoa Florida.  The Cuban missile crisis was underway with everyone concerned that Russia was going to fire missiles on the U.S. from Cuba.  There was no interstate back in those days so all the troops had to  travel down U.S. 1, the main road south.  Ken and I watched as truck after truck filled with troops traveled south.  My family was concerned about me being in Florida because of the crisis.  Well as history will tell you, there were no missiles fired except the ones on Cape Canaveral where we were working.

Now 54 years later we are once again mailing to Cuba and it seems that relations between the two countries are getting better. I think that is a good thing. I might even get to visit sometime.

 

Doing Laser Personalization Right and the Fear of Bar-Codes.

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Laser personalized letter can have a great impact on reaching your market.  We all like to see our name instead of a dear friend salutation.  This is especially important for non-profit organizations.  If someone is giving your organization money, they expect you to know their name.  For a long time if you wanted a letter to go into a non-window envelope the letter had to be printed in order and the envelope had to be printed in order and then someone had to hand match the names and put them in the envelope.  With new technology such as the DS-1200 NeoPost inserter addressing equipment that is a thing of the past.  Now when we print the laser personalized letter, we put a bar-code on the back of the letter and our NeoPost inserter reads the bar-code and puts the corresponding address on the non-window envelope.

Now let me address the fear of bar-codes.  Bar-codes are on everything, from groceries to auto parts.  People have become accustomed to seeing bar-codes.  Even if you hand write your Grandma a letter and put a first class stamp on it, when she receives it the letter will have a bar-code applied by the USPS.  Bar-codes are how production becomes more efficient. Non-profits are sometimes hesitant about having a bar-code on the back of the letter.  I don’t think that donors will care if there is a bar-code on the back of the letter, but I do think that they will see their name instead of dear friend and feel better about the organization.  Don’t be afraid of bar-codes, they speed production and using a bar-code for addressing saves you money on postage.

 

My Graphics Team Does More Than Design

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Graphics team standing in front of a Mac Computer
The Burns Graphics Team

Gone are the days when all that graphic designers did was design brochures, catalogs and other print collateral.  Sure they still do that now, but they do so much more.  They actually are the control center for several pieces of production machinery.  When a job comes in a job ticket is written up and that job ticket number is the tracking source  through every department.  It first goes to a production computer and if printing plates are needed, it is already programmed by the graphic department so that they just pull up the job ticket number and make the plates.  The programming is done also for the digital press and even the paper cutter. I may have mentioned this before, but I love technology.

Beautiful Belize

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I was blessed to get to spend a week with my family in Belize during spring break. A week to spend with the only thing to do is be a tourist.  It was great but now I am back with my work family and we are busy doing our thing of graphic design, printing and mailing.  You can be part of our work family, just give me a call.  We are just like Olive Garden, we will treat you like family.

IMG_1335

Caye Caulker, Belize

The Best Sizes For Post Cards

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Post cards come in all different sizes.  Some folks think that if they use a 4×6 post card it will be less postage.  Actually, you can mail a 6×11 post card and the postage is the same.  You get many benefits from a larger card.  First it gets noticed in the mail and you have a lot more space to get you message across to your recipient.   At Burns we can print and address your post cards at the same time, on our digital press.  We can actually mail in one day if the digital press is not booked heavily.  The digital press is good for quantities of 5000 or under.  If the quantity is over 5000 it is best to put them on a conventional offset press. You can go to our website http://www.burnsmp.com for an online quote.