Inkjet & Digital Printing
Personalisation Hits The Mark In The Fight Against Shortfalls In Council Tax
Monday 26. May 2008 - Southwark Borough Council reaps the benefits offered by the KODAK NEXPRESS M700 Digital Color Press
Many local councils in the UK will attest that each year over £700m of council tax remains outstanding and uncollected. Southwark Council being an Inner London Borough also faced challenges. To try and overcome these, they implemented a hugely successful direct marketing campaign which was executed by Enfield Printer Turnpike, using their brand new KODAK NEXPRESS M700 Press.
The four-color KODAK NEXPRESS M700 Press will print at 70 ppm with a 1,200 x 1,200 dpi image resolution. The new technology enables excellent image quality, including consistent and vivid color reproduction and superb print properties for abrasion, bricking, finishing, etc.
Originally a strict Litho printer, Turnpike recently broke in to digital printing and was a beta testing site for the KODAK NEXPRESS M700 Press. Having had great success during the test phase, Turnpike went on to become the first full UK installation for the press during 2007. With the company keen to maintain its reputation as an innovative solutions provider for its customers, working with a high profile name like Southwark Borough Council was a key priority.
Turnpike Managing Director Tony Jackson says: “Kodak told us about its new NEXPRESS M700 Press and we were convinced by the excellent reputation of the existing NEXPRESS Presses and by the enormous potential of the new version to expand our business. In addition, Turnpike was already a Kodak customer and weve always been well looked after, which was an important consideration in a move into such a new technical area.”
Southwark Borough Council turned to Turnpike when it became clear that it needed to look at new and innovative ways for collecting Council Tax. For the Council, it was imperative to find a direct way of making the recipient read and respond to the request for payment. The resulting mail piece not only provided a highly creative solution, but also took advantage of the unique benefits that the M700 could deliver in terms of personalisation and high quality print delivery.
Tony Jackson continues: “When Southwark Borough Council explained to us that they were looking for alternative methods to encourage payment of overdue Council Tax payments, we came up with an original, personalised DM piece, printed 100 on the NEXPRESS M700 Press, and when the council sent them out they received such a record response that it has turned in to a much bigger job – we are printing longer runs using the same design on a monthly basis.”
The final mailer took the form of a 155mm square birthday card style envelope which was postmarked from Enfield to ensure that it was not identified as a piece of formal correspondence and therefore thrown away without reading. The envelope contained the 6 page 150mm square mailer which was personalised with the recipients name and a question – Ever wanted to see your name in print?
Inside, the mailer was designed to encourage continued reading. It showed a mock up of the local Southwark newspaper with the recipients name highlighted together with the amount of tax owed. Also included was a personalised letter that repeated the information and pointed out very clearly the consequences of non-payment. In addition, a personalised statement to encourage immediate payment of the debt was enclosed.
Following the first trials of the scheme, the Borough has already received significant increases in arrears collection and estimates that over 25% of recipients have so far contacted the council.
Dominic Cain, Head of Client Services at Southwark Borough Council comments, “We were thrilled with the original response from the direct mailers. It proved to us how important personalisation in print can be; something we had not considered before. We were delighted with the quality and are already on our second stage of the project, where we are sending a further 6500 pieces which also include a personalised financial statement identifying the full details of the debt. Were confident that this stage will be as successful as the first.”
Tony Jackson concludes: “About 20 per cent of the work printed on the KODAK NEXPRESS M700 Press comes from clients we didnt have five months ago, with the remainder made up of new business from existing customers. Its not unusual now, as with Southwark Borough Council, for clients to visit our premises to discuss their complex work as we can have much more of an input with their marketing communications. We are way ahead of our original expectations for the digital press and we are only just touching the surface of possibilities. For instance, there are continued opportunities in providing variable data printing services and this area will only grow. Its difficult to stress sufficiently the positive effect installing the KODAK NEXPRESS M700 Press has had on our business but its certainly been the ideal technology for Turnpike in our move into the world of digital print, and its actually brought the fun back into print.”