By all indicators, Heidi Buckley’s small business is booming these days.
She recently secured a $2 million loan for capital investments. She expects to hire six or seven employees in the coming year to cover a new second shift. And she’s forecasting her company’s annual revenue — driven by the purchase of new equipment — will increase by nearly 33 percent in 2014 to $4 million.
Those numbers would make most small business owners happy in a still-anemic economy. But they are particularly notable for Buckley, founder and president of West Hartford-based Marketing Solutions Unlimited, whose company is growing in an industry — commercial printing — that has fallen victim to consolidations and closings, both in Connecticut and nationally, over the past 15 years.
In fact, the number of Connecticut printing companies has decreased nearly 18 percent since the Great Recession hit in 2008, and is down 33 percent when compared to 1998 figures, according to the National Association of Printing Leadership (NAPL).
Earlier this year, for example, Hartford’s Lebon Press, whose printing roots date back to the 1920s, shuttered its doors. Finlay Printing, Wolf Color Print and Creative Graphic are other Greater Hartford print shops that recently closed.
“It’s important to remember that the [print industry] consolidation is not just the result of economic and cyclical pressures,” said Joe Vincenzino, NAPL’s senior economist, “but reflects structural changes, such as the Internet and digitization, which are redefining all aspects of the commercial printing industry.”
Buckley has been navigating industry challenges since founding her company in 1991, working out of her living room to start with the help of two employees.
In addition to their expectations, customers’ needs — and approaches to direct mail — have also evolved over the past two decades, Buckley contends.
“When I started [my business], direct mail and commercial printing were separate industries,” Buckley said. “Today, most companies provide both functions because customers want the convenience of a one-stop shopping experience.”
Printers who failed to acknowledge or adapt to these new realities, Buckley notes, have largely gone out of business.
“With more limited budgets, clients are much more focused on targeted messaging to select groups [of prospects] today,” she said. “And they are demanding faster turnaround times.”
Those demands are why Buckley invested in new equipment — including a $1.5 million five-color press capable of printing 15,000 pieces per hour, and a $450,000 digital printer, allowing Marketing Solutions Unlimited to print on just about any surface.
“With our new technologies, we no longer have to outsource larger, more complex [print] jobs,” Buckley said, noting she expects the new equipment to increase company output by 50 percent. “We can now print, personalize and deliver, for example, a 25,000-piece mailing overnight.”
While expanding production capabilities is important to Buckley, she has tried to distinguish her company with service, she said.
“Prior to starting my own company, I had worked in the industry for nearly eight years,” Buckley explained, “and felt I would do a better job of retaining clients with superior service.”
For Marketing Solutions Unlimited, that has meant taking a consultative approach.
“I think that’s one of our real strengths,” Buckley said, explaining that her company will often offer suggestions to clients about the most cost-effective ways to share their message. “Something as basic as a postcard [mailer], for instance, can vary in cost, so we help our clients understand their options and make the best choice for their business.”
Buckley said she has nearly 150 clients, many of them locally-based and in the financial, healthcare, nonprofit and education sectors.
“We have done mailings for national groups,” Buckley said. “But we have found there’s enough business within a 10-mile radius of our West Hartford facility to keep us successful.”
That success — Buckley estimates her company printed or mailed between 5 to 10 million pieces last year alone — has been driven by client loyalty, even during the Great Recession, which Buckley says actually helped her company.
“We were able to acquire top talent and less-expensive equipment and came out of the recession ahead,” she said. “Our customers stayed with us, even if they cut back, and now we’re in a position to help them grow.”
Buckley has steadily expanded her staff to 21 employees and moved her business from her living room to a 15,000 square-foot Talcott Road facility. Buckley credits growth to the company’s conservative approach and staying on top of industry trends.
For instance, Buckley says, her company started to integrate more online components with print pieces.
“We are growing our capabilities to do email blasts, online stores and personalized websites,” she said. “There will be a need for that type of service [in the industry] going forward.”
