Company chose Xeikon press for its "offset-like" print quality and ability to handle variable data

Itasca, IL - Xeikon NV, an innovator in digital color printing technology, announced today that Precision Dialogue, an analytics-driven, multi-channel, customer engagement firm based in Chicago, IL, has purchased and installed a Xeikon 8500 digital color press to boost production of high quality, data-driven direct mail pieces.

Precision Dialogue provides industry leading lettershop and mailing services, managing over one billion mail pieces annually. They combine innovative thinking with operational flexibility and postal optimization processes to deliver greater responses with less spend.

Phil Manade, Director of Data Services/Digital Imaging for Precision Dialogue, said the company chose the Xeikon 8500 for a combination of reasons:

• Operating economics: Xeikon offers an "à la carte" pricing model where customers only pay for what they use in terms of toner and consumables rather than a fixed price as is the case with click-based models. As a result, Precision Dialogue can achieve much better operating economics with the Xeikon technology, according to Manade.
• No substrate pre-coating: Unlike competing digital color presses, Xeikon presses print on a wide range of substrates, including conventional substrates, without any pre-coating. "We don't have that much control over our clients' substrates, so having the widest substrate envelope possible was very important to us," Manade said.
• "Offset-like" printing quality: Precision Dialogue was searching for a digital press that could offer "offset-like" printing quality. The Xeikon 8500 offers true 1200 x 3600 dpi imaging addressability, exceeding the capabilities of competing digital solutions that Precision Dialogue evaluated.

"Xeikon's digital technology has injected new life into printed mail pieces, offering compressed production cycles for full color variable campaigns, while not compromising on our clients' quality expectations. Precision Dialogue's investment in this technology increases our overall print capacity and streamlines our integrated print and mail workflow to contain total implementation costs for increasingly targeted campaigns. With its powerful X-800 Digital Front End, the Xeikon 8500 is ideal for projects requiring extensive one-to-one personalization," said Precision Dialogue CEO Tom Ragen.

"In today's information-cluttered world where consumers are bombarded with hundreds of marketing messages, personalized full-color direct mail pieces should be part of every marketer's direct marketing strategy," said Michael V. Ring, president of Xeikon America, Inc. "We're proud to partner with an innovative company like Precision Dialogue, which clearly recognizes the potential of the Xeikon 8500 for direct mail, with the press' unbeatable combination of productivity, quality and cost efficiency."