Targeting Direct Mail Growth With Digital Print

The Groningen (The Netherlands) pre-press company, Chris Russell, has expanded its machine park by investing in a Kodak Nexpress 2100 digital colour press.

The Groningen (The Netherlands) pre-press company, Chris Russell, has expanded its machine park by investing in a Kodak Nexpress 2100 digital colour press.

The press will enable Chris Russell to quickly and reliably produce direct marketing material, along with the capability to satisfy customer demands for personalised print work.

Chris Russell was founded 16 years ago and employs a staff of 16 people.

The company offers a variety of products, ranging from design, DTP and litho, to layout and printing of direct mail orders and advertising leaflets, as well as point-of-sale products, such as posters and point of sale displays.

The main target groups of Chris Russell are retail chains such as Scapino, de Crest Groep and Vogele, as well as small to mid-sized enterprises throughout The Netherlands.

Willem Nelck, the managing director of Chris Russell, said: "We are currently producing a lot of point-of-sale materials, such as shelf displays, announcements and promotions for retail and supermarket chains.

Personalized printed materials and direct mail make up a large part of our activities and we would like to increase our level of personalised print work." The overall quality of the Nexpress 2100 press was the key factor in Nelck's purchasing decision.

Based on his earlier experiences with digital printing, Nelck carefully scrutinised the machine's printing quality.

He added: "We had a digital printing press before but we simply could not accept inferior quality.

The Nexpress 2100 produces prints in offset quality, and that's exactly what we are aiming for.

Now we can deliver real quality prints as opposed to just simple digital print work." Nelck was impressed with the quality of the Kodak Nexpress fifth imaging unit, in particular the matte coating and the fifth colour option.

He explained: "With a four-colour press, we can already reproduce a large number of Pantone spot colours perfectly but with the five-colour Nexpress 2100 press, we can reproduce close to 90 per cent of Pantone spot colours.

Combined with the high degree of reliability and substrate flexibility, the Nexpress 2100 press is simply the best machine available on the market today.

The machine has been in operation for the better part of two months now and editions are increasing to up to 200,000 prints.

I predict that we can double our printing output every six months." The press will be primarily used for printing direct marketing material and to expand the production of personalised print work.

However, Nelck said that he also sees the potential for tapping in to new markets as well, and he continued: "The Nexpress 2100 has given us the advantage of being able to produce very quickly, without making any concessions to the quality of the printed product.

In the near future, we plan to use this machine to focus on the non-profit, automotive and insurance sector." He added that the 2100's ease of use makes it especially conducive to the needs of a small but ambitious firm that is growing by innovation.

Nelck concluded: "The 2100 press fits perfectly in to a pre-press environment and due to its ease-of-use you don't even need to have print experience to operate it.

The press gives us greater opportunities and makes us more competitive than ever.

If you want to have a prosperous future in this sector, you have to innovate all the time.

And I'm certain that the Nexpress 2100 press will play a decisive part in this innovation process.".

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