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Solutions April 2006
Cover
Story
TOP
100 Manufacturers — Growth
Strategy
DIRECT
MAIL
Creating
Unique Products
Company:
Western States Envelope &
Label Co.
Headquarters:
Butler, Wis.
Founded:
1908
Principal:
Mark S. Lemberger, President
Employees:
765
Business
in Brief:
Western States Envelope &
Label is one of the largest envelope
and label manufacturers in the
nation. The company boasts more
than 1,600 stock products ready
for immediate delivery and has
five manufacturing locations in
Wisconsin, Ohio, Kentucky, and
Minnesota.
Sales
increase from FY 2004 to FY 2005:
2.7%
Within
the past 100 years, Western States
Envelope & Label Co. has mastered
the art of manufacturing envelopes,
but Mark S. Lemberger, company
president, says that even a manufacturer
as practiced as Western States
occasionally faces challenges
when designing new products. The
company met one of these challenges
last year when a client needed
an unusual direct mail piece requiring
both envelope and label manufacturing
capabilities.
“One
of our clients needed a special
product,” Lemberger says.
“They had proposed to one
of their customers an envelope
design that would include coupons
for discounts to local businesses.”
Western
States was given the task of designing
a coupon mailer that would have
an additional insert but not increase
postage costs for the end user.
“They wanted to keep the
weight down,” Lemberger
says. “Historically, the
postage for these pieces was right
at the weight limit. If they added
another insert, it would have
bumped them over the limit into
a higher postage cost.”
Western
States suggested putting a series
of perforated coupons on the inside
of the direct mail envelope instead
of adding an insert. “But
they were worried that people
might not notice the coupons,”
Lemberger says. “Traditionally,
you could only do one color on
the inside of these mail pieces
and leave the attention-grabbing
graphics for the outside.”
But
Lemberger says that because of
the company’s label printing
capability, Western States was
able to use its Mark Andy high-speed,
flexographic, microweb label presses
for the project. They could also
use the label division’s
die cutting capabilities to create
the perforated coupons.
“We
couldn’t print the four
colors they wanted on our traditional
envelope printer,” which,
he says, is an F.L. Smithe press,
but the company could do it with
its roll-to-roll label press.
The
final product made both the client
and end user happy. “It
kept things within the weight
limit they wanted, gave them eye-catching
coupons on the inside and allowed
them advertising placement on
the inside of the mailing,”
he says. Since then, the client
has requested additional direct
mail pieces done the same way.
To
promote their niche and these
capabilities to potential clients,
Lemberger says Western States
has “our own personal sales
force who call people within the
trade and let them know about
our unique products like these
that other envelope manufacturers
can’t do because they don’t
have label printing capability.
We also sell pressure sensitive
labels. Often times envelopes
and labels go hand and hand.”
Lemberger
credits two reasons for why Western
States increased sales last year.
“We have done a lot internally
to improve our processes and the
types of products that we can
do, and market this very aggressively,”
he says. Lemberger also
says that within the past year,
the consumption of envelope products
increased nationally by nearly
5 percent. “There is growth
in the mail market despite e-commerce.
Marketers realize the personal
touch of mail, the personal experience
of a potential customer opening
an envelope.”
—LaShell
Stratton
