“People who used to mail millions (of pieces) are now mailing hundreds of thousands and people who used to mail billions are now mailing millions,” she said.
That shift gave Dayton Mailing Services, or DMS, a chance to capture business that might have gone to larger “big-box” mailing houses, she said.
DMS, 100 S. Keowee St., is not a postal facility and does not postmark mail. It sorts mail for business customers according to postal service specifications.
“We really pride ourselves on being able to handle small quantities (of mail) and large quantities,” said Kim Boyd, the company’s director of sales and marketing.
In the past two years, DMS has invested nearly $3 million in equipment. With a process called “commingling,” the company will offer mail pre-sorting and delivery to business customers, Soward said. The company’s presorter machine can process one million pieces of mail daily and will, in the words of a DMS press release, “pick up where the Dayton post office has left off.”
But the company’s moves are driven more by technology than anything else, Soward said.
“The digital environment is the catalyst of it all, with technology evolving and changing.” said Soward, who has owned the company for 28 years.
DMS can digitally design a piece of mail — say, an advertisement — for a customer and print and mail it. Customers in general want flexibility from a marketing vendor who can marry digital design with traditional printing, she said.
“We’re like clay,” Soward said. “We kind of mold ourselves to what we need to be for our customer.”
The business has 55 employees, down from 120 at one point. But volume has increased because the company has invested in faster equipment. Soward would not give specific figures, but she said revenue has increased “at least” 20 percent each year over the last three years.
Soward sees significance in all forms of communication, but she believes mail remains effective. Unlike broadcast messages, print can’t be muted or turned off, and it will still be there after a person leaves a room.
“Even if they throw it in the trash, your mind consciously sees that piece, and it (stores) it away,” she said.
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