Decades ago, a fire broke out in a Manhattan print shop and burned it to the ground. The owner of the print shop, who had been putting off upgrading his workflow—said it was the best thing to happen to his business. Instead of worrying about how to integrate new workflows into a complicated, layered-on legacy system, he had the freedom to start from scratch and build a modern print shop the way it ought to be built.

Something similar often happens when an older generation print shop owner retires or leaves or sells the business to a younger family member or counterpart. The business is able to throw off any legacy perspectives that can hinder innovation and embrace entirely new ways of thinking.

In the upcoming May/June print edition of What They Think, we’ll look at the topic of mailing technology—everything from high-speed, full-color, full-bleed envelope personalization to the impact of artificial intelligence. The topic focuses on technology, but several of those interviewed for the piece pointed out that the catalyst for embracing and integrating those technologies is often a change in leadership.

The Stopping Power of Innovation

In the article, Jim Williams, director of marketing for Kirk-Rudy, gives the example of one of his customers who created an application that uses Kirk-Rudy’s FireJet 4c four-color inkjet envelope printer to generate envelopes printed with full-color Google images of the recipient’s home based on triggers in the customer’s CRM. Talk about stopping power!

“This guy recently took over his father’s printing business. He’s young, so he thinks like his customers (because he is the age of his customers) and knew the best way to get recipients to open the envelope is to see a Google image of their own, personal house printed on the front,” says Williams. “Sometimes their car is even in the driveway. They’re going to open that, right?”

Print shops like this, where the younger generation has taken over, blow Williams away with their creativity. “They have this incredible ability to take their knowledge of data and online systems and bring it into marketing,” he says. “It’s powerful.”

This isn’t to say that “older generation” print shop owners aren't or can’t be innovative. But let’s face it—there is a difference between intellectually understanding something and having a native understanding because you live and breathe it every day.

Unencumbered by Legacy

It is also why some of the greatest mailing innovations are coming from companies outside the traditional printing industry. Scott Eganhouse, vice president of business development of TEC Mailing Solutions LLC, gives the example of one of his customers that started out as a marketing firm. “They do print as a by-product, so they came to us not knowing a thing about mail,” he says. “That was a good thing, because they didn’t come with preconceived notions about how things should be.”

This gave TEC Mailing Solutions, which leverages cloud-based tools to problem-solve mailing workflows, the freedom to create a completely automated, lights out solution (also focused on the real estate market) that also creates fully personalized mailers based on triggers from the customer’s CRM. The revenue model is much like Google Ad Words, with the program generating and sending out mailers in the background based on the client’s budget. Is it successful? The customer didn’t even own a digital press when he started talking to Eganhouse. Now his company has more than doubled in size, and his business is growing based on his investment in mailing.

“The automation of mail is a mysterious thing for a lot of people,” notes Eganhouse. “They often don’t consider automation because there is a list processor out there telling them, ‘You can’t automate this stuff,’ and they buy it. But it can be done. Now, that older generation is leaving the business (including the older generation of list processors, who are not being replaced), and it’s presenting a new opportunities for those who haven’t been told that it can’t be done. They just assume it can.”

Comfortable with the Cloud

This often starts with a native understanding and comfort level with the cloud. Instead of being nervous about the cloud, this generation of leaders embraces it as being as a normal as getting a cup of morning coffee. This opens new doors of creativity—and once they actually get started, the ideas start to fly. “That is how these guys progress,” says Eganhouse. “For many people, it’s difficult to understand this stuff until after they use it for a month. But once they stick their toes in the pool, the light goes on.”

Another benefit of native comfort level with the cloud is an understanding of all of the services that it supports. “One of the biggest challenges in mailing today is that all of the technology for direct mail enhancement is under-utilized,” notes Morgan DiGiorgio, senior vice president sales and marketing for DirectMail2.0, a platform that integrates direct mail with cutting edge technologies to seamlessly track mail, show attribution, and lift the response. “There is a ton of technology at printers’ fingertips, but the learning curve is challenging. It is difficult to implement in the organization, so companies, especially those with more traditional leadership teams, don’t harness some of the technology available to them.”

It’s called being too busy chopping wood to sharpen your ax.

DiGiorgio points to DM 2.0’s patent pending program, LEADMatch, as well as an upcoming DM 2.0.ai, which is being developed to use artificial intelligence to allow customers to tap into DM 2.0’s massive database to uncover insights that will help them increase customers’ direct mail response rates. Such programs offer tremendous opportunity, but require printers to take time away from day-to-day operation in order to make the time investment in order to learn and integrate them. This willingness sometimes takes the support and championing from a younger generation that understands, at a native level, why this level of business disruption is not just valuable, but often necessary.

Does this mean that the old guard needs to step down before true innovation can occur? Of course not. But there needs to be a recognition of the impact that the younger generation’s natural assimilation of cutting-edge technologies and marketing models has real value. If printers want to embrace the kind of transformational change they know they need, they might want to bring younger faces into the inner circle.