Life gives you surprises sometimes. For example, I’m pretty sure you didn’t wake up today expecting to read about the U.S. Patent 701,839, but that is exactly what you may do for the next minute. It’s Chicago in 1902, and Americus F. Callahan is excited to receive U.S. patent number 701,839 for the “outlook envelope.” His invention went on to revolutionize business-to-consumer and business-to-business communication. He created an envelope design that showed the recipient’s name and address through a window and the sender’s address through a second window.
Americus’ windowed envelope caught on, becoming used for business correspondence for over 100 years. It’s easy to imagine trillions of windowed envelopes around the world delivering critical business-to-customer and business-to-business communications like bills, invoices, correspondence, legal documents, contracts, marketing materials, and other communications. They started traveling back to the sender, as they became inserted into envelopes with pre-addressed remittance slips to facilitate payments and used for at least 50 years for mortgage and auto-loan coupon books.
This was an amazing partnership until the last ten or so years. Windowed envelopes brought efficiency and cost savings to a high-volume process, which is an operational dream. But, privacy laws started to become commonplace. Postal rates constantly increased, putting pressure to reduce weight. This tightened designs, moving data to the top third of the page to best capture the recipient’s attention.
Anyone who has designed mail for the USPS® using the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) knows about the tap test, which is a simple motion of tapping the letter on every side to ensure the address is machine readable through the window with 1/8” buffer. When most people perform a tap test, they look to make sure no personal data is visible through the window. However, this can be overlooked, as the test is generally done with USPS® machine conformity in mind.
In the not-too-distant past, businesses have accidentally exposed member IDs, patient information, and medication information through windowed envelopes. There have been fines and class action damages exceeding $18 million for a single mailing. More privacy laws are being passed, and the fines and risks are increasing. This is a good reason to find an alternative to the windowed envelope, but there are some challenges.
In the United States, the windowed envelope has become synonymous with business correspondence. If an American consumer sees a windowed envelope with a recognizable logo near the return address, it is assumed to be an important piece of business mail. An expert might look at the postage markings or stamps to determine first or standard-class postage before sorting it into the right pile for processing. American consumers are not trained to expect first-class business mail to have the recipient’s name and address printed directly on the envelope. But, with on-envelope printing, it is easy to retain your customers.
Printing the recipient’s name and address directly on the envelope has several advantages. First, the risk of incurring multi-million-dollar expenses for fines and settlements from data breaches due to production negligence drops to zero. If there is no window, a designer in a rush, an inaccurately set up printer, a misconfigured folder, or other problem will not have an address window expose you to negligence. Next, the top third of the first page of every communication becomes usable, delivering higher readability for your recipients. On a tight design, this extra real estate prevents additional pages to reduce extra weight costs.
Quadient’s line of Digital Printers and Addressing Systems are available as modules to many of our popular folding and inserting systems. When paired with Quadient’s AIMS technology, you receive a full and complete digital audit trail that proves that every communication is inserted into the proper envelope. This closed-loop verification is confirmed by multiple scans within the equipment. Any folding or inserting errors trigger an immediate notification to ensure that your customer’s data is accurate and secure and has been prepared for its intended recipient.
While customers may not yet expect envelopes with printed addresses to contain critical information, your logo and a custom-printed message on each envelope can quickly train them on the security and privacy benefits of on-envelope printing. As you started reading this, you may have been surprised about what you were going to read. By shifting away from windowed envelopes, you may save yourself the surprise of a data breach that will cost you the trust of your customers (and a lot of money.)
