Statement Printing

Offset printing is a term that you have probably come across when working with printers. This printing process is the most popular today and is the technique used where the inked image is transferred (aka “offset”) from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing service.

A little history behind this process is that it was actually developed in two versions: by Robert Barclay of England for printing on tin in 1875, and by Ira Washington Rubel (by accident) of the United States for printing on paper in 1903.

Offset printing is best suited for producing large volumes of high quality prints in an economically sound, cost effective way.

Advantages
Advantages of offset printing when compared to other printing methods are:

-Consistently high quality images. This advantage is because the rubber blanket conforms to the texture of the printing surface.
-Easy and quick production of printing plates.
-Longer printing plate life because there is no direct contact between the plate and the printing surface.
-Cost. Offset printing is the cheapest method to produce high quality printing in large printing quantities.

Of course, there are disadvantages and other methods to choose from, but offset printing is a great option for high volume jobs because of the efficiency, cost advantages, and quality.

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With the amount of the direct mail consumers receive, it is often assumed that print and mail providers are not environmentally friendly. According to the EPA, direct mail is 2.1% of the solid waste discarded by Americans. At the top of the list was food scraps at 18.2%.

So, what questions can you ask your print and mail vendor to ensure they are doing their part in being environmentally friendly?

-Ask if your vendor is FSC certified. FSC is the Forest Stewards Council and carrying the the FSC-certification logo on your print products tells the world that you support the highest social and environmental standards in the market where you use paper. You can learn more at their website.

-Ask if your vendor prints with soy ink. Printing with soy ink is a key way to reduce the environmental burden of printing. Soybean oil comes from a renewable source: soybeans. Soybeans beans are widely available at low cost. Soybean agriculture uses only 0.5% of the total energy needed to produce soy ink. Almost half of all soybeans produced in America need no irrigation. As soybeans are growing they temporarily remove damaging carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere.

-If you’re vendor does not currently have FSC certification or print with soy ink, ask if they plan to do so soon.

Many of your customers are likely to be concerned about your environmental footprint and having the knowledge about the environmental friendliness of your print and mail vendor is important for when these questions come up.

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According to the USPS website, mailers and the Postal Service™ will gain end-to-end visibility into the mailstream through the use of the suite of Intelligent Mail barcodes and by submitting electronic documentation, which will create actionable information about mail for marketing, financial and operational environments. So, what does this mean for your business mailings? You will be able to track your mail using the Intelligent Mail Barcode to track your mail pieces and USPS can use the same barcode to sort your mail pieces.

If you outsource your printing and mailing, the outsourcer will take care of this barcoding for you but it is important for businesses to know what information that barcode provides. Let’s look at this example below.

There are 4 types of bars within the barcode: Ascender, Full, Tracker, and Descender. Each of these types of bard is assigned a letter- A, F, T, and D. Those letters are used as the tracking sequence and can be entered on the USPS decoder site and can track the Service Type ID, Delivery Point, Mailer ID, and Serial Number.

What does all of this mean for businesses? Really, it’s just a means for USPS to provide expanded tracking. So, suppose an invoice never reaches your customer. You can actually track the mail piece and see if it was delivered to the correct destination. The Intelligent Mail Barcode is an innovative service from USPS and one that you want to make sure your print and mail outsourcing company uses.

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Sending certified mail pieces can be a costly and time consuming process for any business. Because copies of signatures are often required, many businesses chose to complete certified mail projects in-house, but it is possible to save time, money, and effort by outsourcing certified mail projects.

A good provider of certified mail services will make it easy on their clients- as simple as sending the file. Once a file is received, it is important to ensure that your certified mail vendor provides a quick turnaround time so that your critical mail pieces can get to the recipients as quickly as possible. To make it easier on their clients, certified mail service providers should provide the manifest of Entry and Article Numbers for your mailings so that the pieces can be easily tracked.

Basically, a business wants to find a vendor who can provide certified mail services that are fast, simple, and secure. By outsourcing certified mail, a company can save on the costs of ordering special certified mail forms and envelops as well as time and effort on preparation of the pieces.

Printing Services and Print on Demand
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Statement Printing Blog