Inkjet & Digital Printing
BTB Mailflight installs HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press for high-end colour direct mail
Wednesday 30. March 2011 - HP today announced that BTB Mailflight Ltd, of Bedford, UK, a leading provider of print, mailing fulfilment and postal services has installed an HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press to bring digital printing in house.
Part of the La Poste Group, BTB Mailflight offers data services, direct mail, print and print management and order fulfilment for a broad customer base. The company had previously out-sourced its colour digital printing requirements but used mono inkjet systems for addressing and personalisation.
“Bringing the digital colour printing in-house closes the loop and gives us control over quality as well as complete production scheduling,” said Elliott Mallows, head of marketing, BTB Mailflight. “The HP Indigo press also enables a true print-on-demand service that delivers better value to our customers by printing only what is needed and minimising waste.”
Fulfilment is a major part of its business and BTB Mailflight works with Royal Mail and alternative UK postal services to reduce postage costs to customers by preparing items so that they can be fed into the system downstream. For international customers, the company will receive materials and inject it into the UK postal network, achieving cheaper postage prices.
Realising the benefits of digital
“Digital print is clearly a growth area,” continued Mallows. “Key considerations for us were print quality, achieving better return on investment for end-users, and the ability to produce text and image personalisation in full colour on a wide range of substrates. Now that we have our own digital printing capability, were beginning to look at other ways of using its potential, like web-to-print.”
This would be a logical extension of BTB Mailflights operation and the company recognises the benefits in managing online catalogues and digital assets as part of effective brand management.
Educating customers and sales staff is an important part of having a digital printing offering and Mallows notes the difference in selling digital print by and to people used to traditional print-buying.
“There are many benefits to digital printing, but it needs to be sold differently than conventional print, and customers need to break themselves from thinking in conventional printing terms,” said Mallows. “For example, sometimes we receive large quantities of language versions, but only a few hundred are ever used. Digitally printed as short-runs these jobs can add value through personalisation and result in greater impact and much higher response rates as well as eliminating storage costs and the need for recycling surplus stock.”
Magazine inserts is another area where having an in-house digital printing capability benefits BTB Mailflight. In the past, the company was dependent on an external supplier.
“We are now able to schedule the printing to suit our production requirements,” Mallows said. “Having this control fills the gap in our value chain, and we can offer that extra assurance to customers.”
Other benefits cited by Mallow include the HP Indigo 7500 Digital Presss ability to match PANTONE Colours, and it uses the HP IndiChrome system for matching corporate brand and special colours.
Established in 1969, BTB Mailflight (www.btbmf.co.uk) was a family business until 2008 when it was bought by the La Poste Group, the third largest postal services group in the world, giving BTB Mailflight the ability to tap into its international resources of experience and expertise.