Customers point to HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press as key to business success
 
PALO ALTO, Calif., – HP print service providers (PSPs), using the HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press, are capturing new growth opportunities, improving operational productivity and reducing costs.

"We wanted to change our company and offer more value to our clients," said one new HP Indigo 7500 user, Bill Barta, president and CEO of Bellwood, Ill.-based Rider Dickerson. "We knew this technology was going to help us do that."

Rider Dickerson and other HP Indigo 7500 users worldwide helped drive a collective 70-percent increase in Indigo 7000-series page volume for the first half of HP's fiscal year, from November 2010 through April 2011.

Featuring automated diagnostic and maintenance capabilities to optimize press uptime and page production, the HP Indigo 7500 sheetfed press offers greater flexibility and higher image quality than other digital presses, enabling PSPs to provide strategic and cost-effective services to their customers.

"The HP Indigo 7500's advanced capabilities, such as its Vision System and auto-diagnostic features, give our customers even higher quality, " said Jan Riecher, vice president and general manager, Graphics Solutions Business – Americas, HP. "Plus, the press's thick substrate and white ink options open new opportunities in greeting cards, in-store signage, folding carton production and other markets."

Rider Dickerson spurs success in college marketing

In 2007, Rider Dickerson began using the HP Indigo press 3050 to handle the massive output the company produces for clients in arenas like health care, graphic design, financial services, and higher education. To keep pace with its ever-expanding services, Rider Dickerson upgraded to the HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press.

Rider Dickerson found an opportunity to put its expanded capabilities into action by handling the annual student recruitment campaign for Robert Morris University -Illinois (RMU), a Chicago-based university with 10 campuses serving 7,200 students.

Rider Dickerson initiated a massive, multi-faceted campaign that capitalized on the speed, productivity, and variable data capabilities of HP Indigo digital printing with the intuitive integrated marketing capabilities of MindFireInc. In addition, Rider Dickerson relied on FusionPro Desktop by PTI. This variable data design and production tool helped ensure the project's customized content was delivered quickly and accurately.

Rider Dickerson helped RMU target prospects by degree preference, test scores, campus location and athletic talent. Based on these variables, Rider Dickerson recommended a cross-media campaign inviting prospective students to visit a personalized URL (PURL).

The cross-media effort was implemented in four phases, including 385,000 personalized direct-mail letters and postcards funneling prospects to interactive PURLs and social media links followed by targeted emails. Despite the sheer volume, every component was individually tailored for each potential recruit.

From the campaign, RMU nearly doubled its response rate and improved its prospects-to-inquiries conversion rate by 79 percent in the first full year. That number increased an additional 30 percent with the latest campaign, along with a 58-percent increase in lead purchase, a 56-percent decrease in costs, and a 6.1-percent increase in overall student enrollment.

PSPs take productivity to new heights

Other customers benefitting from recent HP Indigo 7500 purchases include:

• Arnold Printing, a Cincinnati-based HP Indigo 5000 user that is now using the 7500's faster speed to drive down costs for high-quality personalized direct marketing work
• Integrity Graphics, Windsor, Conn., which is using its new press to expand its popular online custom marketing offering, saving clients time and money on collateral fulfillment
• Cleveland-based Jakprints, which added its new press to improve costs and sustainability in short-run work for designers and other clients requiring true offset quality.

Several of the PSPs installing HP Indigo 7500 presses financed their purchases using HP Financial Services, the company's leasing and life cycle asset management services subsidiary. HP Financial Services provides competitive rates and flexible terms for a business's digital publishing solutions, with terms, structures and resources customized to the needs of commercial printers.

The digital workhorse for commercial print providers
The HP Indigo 7500 offers true offset- and photo-quality imaging at speeds up to 120 four-color, letter-size pages per minute. It is ideally suited to handle short- to medium-run length jobs as well as high-value applications, such as variable-data-driven marketing collateral, photo books and personalized direct mail.

The press offers Intelligent Automation features for improved productivity, automated calibration and troubleshooting with a Vision System solution and improved color consistency.(1) The HP Indigo 7500 also uses less imaging oil and consumes up to 10 percent less energy per printed page.(1)

More information about HP Indigo digital presses is available at www.hp.com/go/gsb or through the HP Graphic Arts Twitter feed, www.twitter.com/hpgraphicarts.