Quad/Graphics Growing Direct Mail Business

SUSSEX, WI—Quad/Graphics is strengthening its direct marketing platform and solutions this year with multimillion-dollar investments in mail processing and equipment, including creating two regional commingling centers to drive greater postal savings and efficiencies for direct mail marketers; investing in a new custom web press and other equipment upgrades in its Effingham, IL, plant; and adding print capabilities to its Westampton, NJ, plant.

“Direct mail continues to be one of the most powerful ways to drive consumer response and we have the solutions today’s marketers need to acquire and retain customers, and grow their business,” explained Steve Jaeger, president of Quad/Graphics direct marketing. “With these new investments, we advance our commitment to helping direct marketers maximize the revenue from their print spend while minimizing their total cost of production and distribution.”

Quad/Graphics will enhance its commingling capabilities with the creation of two new regional commingling centers: A Midwest center in New Berlin, WI, and an East Coast center at its existing direct mail production plant in Westampton, NJ.

The commingling process merges individual mail pieces together to improve presort discounts and drop-ship savings, reducing postal handling and delivery time. “Postage is typically our clients’ single largest production-related expense and can be as much as 60 percent of their budget,” remarked Jaeger. “By consolidating direct mail volume into these two new mailing centers, Quad/Graphics will help our clients qualify for greater postal discounts.”

The Midwest commingling center will start up in May in a 225,000-square-foot building in New Berlin, not far from Quad/Graphics’ other southeastern Wisconsin facilities. “In the near future, we will add co-palletization capabilities to this location to further enhance postal discounts for our clients,” Jaeger commented.

The East Coast commingling center will start up later this month in the Westampton plant and will support Quad/Graphics’ nearby direct marketing production facilities, newly acquired from Vertis.

Quad/Graphics will add print capabilities to its Westampton plant and enhance Effingham’s platform with a new custom web offset press. In addition, equipment upgrades to other Effingham presses will allow the plant to produce promotional gaming pieces, such as scratch-off products.

The Effingham plant’s new custom web press, scheduled to start up by the end of the summer, is a highly productive and versatile, 11-unit double-web press featuring high output and maximum flexibility for producing complex mail pieces. Unique features include duplex inkjet capability so both sides of both webs can be personalized with coupons, barcodes and highly customized messaging to drive consumer engagement and elicit response. The 11 printing units allow complex combinations of PMS colors and varnish coatings. The press is modular, providing flexibility for inline finishing such as diecutting, gluing and UV coatings that can be set up in any order depending on the job.

Two other presses at the Effingham plant, scheduled to start up in May, will be upgraded with equipment for game piece production. Enhancements to the plant’s variable imaging and inkjet capabilities are also planned, giving direct marketers more options to drive response.

The Westampton plant is in the process of adding print capabilities to complement the plant’s existing finishing operations. Quad/Graphics will relocate several laser printers and two forms presses from other Quad/Graphics direct marketing facilities.