To be the top direct marketing solutions company, we need to have the top people in every department. How do you attract the top people – you give them an environment where they feel safe, heard, and appreciated. We’re honored to have consistently been awarded a Printing Industry Midwest Best Places to Work designation. Prioritizing the safety of our employees is always top-of-mind and a practice that we see flow naturally out of our team.
1. Committed Safety Team on Production Floor
When I started at Nahan in 1989, safety was controlled under department managers, the changes made to having a designated Safety Coordinator helped streamline safety policies. To raise more awareness of Nahan’s safety policies and to ensure employees are following best-practice procedures, we developed a Safety Team that comprises of employees across departments. This team serves as a link between employees and management where anyone can bring their safety ideas and suggestions to be brought up in Safety Meetings.
2. Monthly Online Safety Training
Working in a production facility naturally brings up many safety topics. We feel it is important to keep all of our employees updated on safety measures by using monthly, online safety training. Preventative measures like this can help us reduce injuries and time away from production, leading to more satisfied employees, and higher quality work for customers.
3. Monthly Safety Audits
To make sure that safety measures are being implemented consistently, monthly safety audits are completed. The results of these audits are shared with the Production Department to make any changes that are needed to minimize hazards, if not entirely eliminate them.
4. Priority of Safety Work Orders
At Nahan, safety is not an after-thought – our entire team is committed to it. Safety Work Orders are given top priority and are completed immediately by our Maintenance Department.
Helping employees recognize hazards, learn how to minimize them, and keep themselves and their teammates safe is why I love what I do. Nahan’s commitment to training employees on best practices and ensuring the safety of all, is a big reason I have been on the Nahan team for over 30 years.
Author Bio: Doug Roob started at Nahan in 1989 and began his role in Safety in 1992. His favorite part of the job is teaching people how to keep safe in the work environment, and the challenges that it can bring.
SAINT CLOUD, MN – November 17, 2021 – Nahan announced that it has expanded its digital printing platform with the addition of the ProStream 1800, manufactured by Canon Solutions America. “This state-of-the-art continuous feed inkjet press will enable Nahan to deliver highly targeted and personalized print at exceptional speeds with award-winning quality and flexibility, unlike anything we’ve seen,” said Nahan CEO Mike Ertel.
Speed
With the ability to produce over 62 million letter impressions per month, the ProStream will increase Nahan’s overall capacity, while reducing production cycle times and enabling faster speed to market for its clients.
Quality
Setting a new benchmark for inkjet quality, the ProStream1800 provides a color gamut beyond offset standards on most papers. At full speed, the ProStream leverages 1,200 dpi resolution with Canon multi-level ink drop size modulation for smooth shadings, striking details in dark tones, and sharp fonts.
Flexibility
The ProStream allows for flexibility across a wide range of media, including standard offset coated, uncoated, and inkjet optimized papers from 40gsm to 300gsm. This will allow Nahan to efficiently produce a wider range of formats than ever before, from premium direct mail, to catalogs, self-mailers, and more. Another compelling feature of the ProStream is that it can produce fully variable 4-color catalog covers in-stream – a new and unique advance in capabilities for Nahan.
“We’re proud to partner with Canon Solutions America on this investment in our future,” said Paul Overn, Vice President, Operations at Nahan. “Their constant innovation and support is invaluable as it has enabled us to meet our customers’ increasing needs for speed and personalization.”
About Nahan
Nahan is an award-winning, privately owned, direct marketing and print solutions company. Nahan leverages the power of omnichannel marketing strategy, creative, data, and analytics coupled with exceptional production and postal strategies to closely connect brands with customers. For more information about Nahan, please visit http://www.Nahan.com.
About Canon Solutions America, Inc.
Canon Solutions America, Inc. provides industry leading enterprise, production, and large format printing solutions, supported by exceptional professional service offerings. Canon Solutions America, Inc. helps companies of all sizes discover ways to improve sustainability, increase efficiency, and control costs in conjunction with high volume, continuous feed, digital and traditional printing, and document management solutions. For more information on Canon Solutions America, please visit csa.canon.com.
We are thrilled to announce that the Nahan website is the recipient of a W3 Gold Award in the category of General Website – Professional Services. The W3 Awards recognize digital excellence in the categories of websites, apps, social content, videos, podcasts, and marketing. Our team is incredibly excited to be awarded this honor that recognizes the hard work of our website launch team and the talents of the team at Lawrence & Schiller. This accomplishment would truly not have been possible without the collaboration of Lawrence & Schiller – a huge thank you to their dedicated team! The award win comes just one year after our website launch in October of 2019. To celebrate both our W3 Awards win and our new website’s one-year anniversary, I spoke with the members of the website launch team to gather insight on the goals and accomplishments of the website launch.
Our website launch team included the following Nahan team members
Melissa Fransen (Marketing Manager)
Aaron Weekes (Director of Business Support Services)
Curt Tillotson (Chief Operating Officer)
Jim Hesch (Client Service Team Leader)
Adam Rohde (Department Leader – IT)
John Klumb (Vice President of Sales and Marketing)
Brenda Blonigen (Senior Account Manager)
Joseph Jachimiec (Security Administrator)
Our Nahan website launch team (from left to right): Melissa Fransen, Aaron Weekes, Curt Tillotson, Jim Hesch, Adam Rohde, John Klumb, Brenda Blonigen, and Joseph Jachimiec
What were some of your goals with the new website?
Melissa: We wanted our website to represent Nahan and our brand, be SEO (Search Engine Optimization)-focused, and be optimized for lead generation. We also wanted it to focus on our people, thought-leadership, and our culture.
John: One of my goals was to have a robust group of blogs available that would be added to on a regular basis. My hope was that this would drive repeat visitors and make us known as a leader in providing valuable content. Thanks to the efforts of many, this is a reality.
What did you enjoy most about the process of relaunching the website?
Aaron: I really enjoyed identifying and creating the profiles of people using the website. The process really helped us understand the content that different consumers would want to know and the best way to tell our story to them. It was a great exercise that Lawrence & Schiller helped us through.
Lawrence & Schiller: It was a unique and rewarding experience to work with our long-time print partner and help them to create a website that is as innovative as they are. For a business who is always dedicated to producing the best work, it was great to turn the tables and put the focus on Nahan.
Brenda: I thoroughly enjoyed learning how much it takes to create a website and the intricate parts of it. It was a great learning experience for me. The Nahan and Lawrence & Schiller team members were so knowledgeable and I learned so much from all of them. They were fun, creative, great thinkers, and such a joy to work with. Wow! Such amazing people.
Does anything in particular stand out to you as something cool or noteworthy you learned during the process?
Jim: I thought it was pretty cool how easy it was to add content. We were able to add some awesome pictures to our website. I’m happy that it’s able to show some friendly team faces.
Melissa: It was a fun process as to how our team built the site tailored to all of the different personas of people who come to the site – from job seekers to community members to customers to print professionals that have been in the industry their entire career to print newbies. There is something for everyone and we continue to build blogs tailored to all of the different people that come to our website.
Adam: I loved the cross-department collaboration that went into the build. The chance to highlight individuals and show who we are was probably my favorite part of the process.
Lawrence & Schiller: Nahan assembled the perfect team to tackle this project. When I say perfect, I really mean that. It was a diverse group of folks from multiple departments and parts of the business, but the special part was how focused their team was when it came to decision-making. As L&S led discussions on vision, audience, content, design and functionality – the Nahan team (time and time again) would collaborate and reach a final, definitive direction on where they wanted to go. This was also a nod to Melissa who had a passion for innovation but a commitment to team.
From your perspective, what was the most difficult challenge you faced during the launch?
Aaron: We took the approach to start from scratch instead of just improving the current site. This was challenging because it took time and caused us to rethink everything, but it was worth the investment.
Joseph: The Nahan team was so fun to work with, and Melissa was a great team lead, so I honestly don’t remember any particularly difficult challenges. Lawrence & Schiller was top-notch, very friendly, talented, and professional. I’m just glad I was able to play a part in the launch from a security perspective, as well as helping with the design, photography, and content. It’s a great website!
Brenda: My greatest challenge was just to understand the whys behind the creative portion of what we were trying to accomplish. How exactly information pulls into a website was a mystery to me, but so very interesting learning this.
Curt: The most difficult part of the process was deciding which words we wanted to make sure that we mentioned on the site so that we show up on Google searches. It was a daunting task, but Melissa and our team at Lawrence & Schiller showed us how to work through it.
What made you the most proud during the process of launching the website?
John: I am proud of the fact the new website does such a great job of conveying who we are and what Nahan is and that we’re not just a printer.
Jim: I’m proud of our collaboration and brainstorming sessions. And then we would all get together with each addition and review . . . oh my, I love smart people.
Lawrence & Schiller: Adding the photo/video shoot to this project really made the website go from “great” to “award winning”. Nahan’s decision to invest in capturing the company culture, people and processes through photography and videography allowed L&S to design a website that was modern, forward-thinking and simply different from your typical print shop. The website truly delivers on its promise of being world-class.
Curt: Our Nahan team that brainstormed our website was amazing. They brought energy, creativity, and competency to the project well beyond what I ever could have imagined. They worked as a team and got it done.
Feel free to explore our website and let us know what you think!
Bio: Camille Lehmann is on the Marketing team and started with Nahan in January of 2020. Camille is responsible for assisting in Nahan’s marketing strategies and goals. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in Marketing with a specialization in Project Management. In her spare time, Camille enjoys writing, going to coffee shops, and spending time with friends and family.
SAINT CLOUD, MN – Sept. 15, 2020 – Printing Impressions Magazine, producer of the annual Gold Ink Awards, announced the winners of the 2020 Annual Gold Ink Awards Competition. The Gold Ink Awards are considered one of the industry’s most prestigious print competitions.
Nahan Printing, Inc. is a proud recipient of two Gold awards! The first is a Gold for the Neiman Marcus 2019 Christmas Catalogand the second is a Gold for the Lawrence & Schiller South Dakota Activity Book. The winning pieces are in the “Consumer Catalogs, Web” and “Consumer Catalogs, Sheetfed” categories. In addition to the two Gold award wins, Nahan also received five Pewter awards in the Catalogs division.
This year’s Gold Ink Award winners were chosen from more than 400 entries submitted within 43 different categories. Winning pieces were chosen based on print quality, technical difficulty, and overall visual effect. All winners can be found at https://www.piworld.com/extension/gold-ink-awards/2020/.
“It is great to be recognized by Printing Impressions for the quality of work we put into every product, each and every day. We are once again, very proud of our team’s commitment and dedication to quality; an asset that continues to set us apart in the industry.” said John Klumb, Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
About Nahan
Nahan Printing is a Minnesota-based, independent, privately-owned, world class printer committed to providing end-to-end solutions that add value to our clients. Since its inception in 1962, Nahan has specialized in catalog and direct mail printing for industries such as retail, ecommerce, financial services, non-profit, hospitality, and more. With a client roster of legendary brands, Nahan prints iconic work that represents the highest level of quality and innovation in the industry. For more information about Nahan, please visit http://www.Nahan.com.
Author: Jon Legg, Data Processing Department Leader
In today’s data-driven marketing world, utilizing the power
of your data can be the difference between a good marketing campaign and a great
marketing campaign that produces a fantastic ROI. A question that we often get
asked is “What is Variable Data Printing and how does it work?”
What is Variable Data Printing?
Variable Data Printing is using your customer’s data to
change text, images, or other content from one piece of mail to the next. Instead of printing one form 100,000 times
you can instead print 100,000 highly individualized pieces. And when we say highly personalized we are
talking about more than just a salutation line that says “Dear John Doe.”
At Nahan we have done a wide range of projects
that utilize variable data printing. The
following four specific examples show what highly
personalized could look like to you.
One project had hundreds of mall locations and for each record, we used a field in the data to variably pull the closest mall to the consumer, a logo for that mall, hours of operation, and a mall directory.
Another project required us to uniquely link over 400,000 photographs so that each record imaged the correct photograph.
A third project involved providing each recipient with a personalized map that showed their house on a map, the nearest store, and a highlighted route between the two.
Lastly, another project showcased a piece that changed all of its content based on the consumer. Family of four? All content showed family-friendly activities and all images changed to photos of families. Single? The entire piece changed to show photos of adults with more of a focus on entertainment and nightlife.
Variable data printing can do all of this and more.
As we like to say, “Where there is data, there is opportunity for customization.”
What Files Are Needed For a Variable Data Project?
At Nahan we can accept all types of files and work with you to get more out of your mail list. Our preferred file format is a CSV file transmitted to our SFTP site. We are also able to use API integrations to directly link with our customers to provide a more seamless transfer of data; both to Nahan and back to our customers. This can include return files, reports, and much more.
How is Data Kept Safe?
In today’s digital landscape we can use data for just about anything, which makes that data extremely valuable. Sadly, the bad guys know that as well and are constantly looking to get their hands on data. But Nahan takes pride in keeping your data safe. We are PCI compliant and are equipped to work with HIPAA data. We have lots of hands-on experience with both. Beyond that our data processing team is literally in a locked room that requires two different forms of authentication just to get in! Given all the efforts that we put into data security, you can rest assured that not only will Nahan keep your data safe, but we will also put it to work for you!
Working Together on a Strategy
As a company, we are not afraid of pushing the boundaries of what can be done with data. We are constantly using the newest technology and then working to perfect it. We also have a data processing team that is equally unafraid of pushing limits and seeing how much we can do with a simple mail list. Let’s work together and see what we can get your next mailing to do for you! Contact us or visit our marketing services page to learn more.
Author: Jon Legg is a Department Leader at Nahan Printing and started with the company in 2015. He currently oversees the Data Processing department as well as the PreMedia department. This means that any files, whether art or data, all come through Jon’s teams. When he isn’t at work Jon loves spending time with his wife and daughter, traveling (usually to Disney World), and working with our local theater company both on stage and as a Director.
At Nahan, we take pride in our commitment to being a responsible, environmentally conscious printer. We want to help create a healthier future for our employees, our customers, our communities and the world. From purchasing raw materials to efficient manufacturing processes, Nahan is considerate of our environment in every decision across the company. In 2018 alone, we recycled over 15.5 Million Pounds of Paper!
Innovative Product Designs and Processes to Reduce Paper Usage
How we were able to recycle 15.5 Million pounds of paper, was through strategizing with our customers, sales, production, and estimating teams to review environmentally conscious options for raw materials and streamline processes for projects to reduce waste. All of our heatset web presses have automated register, color, cut off and ribbon control systems integrated into them. With these systems, we are able minimize waste and improve overall quality and consistency during make-ready and throughout the run. In addition to the integrated press systems that reduces waste while running, we utilize CIP 3 data from the plate making files to preset ink fountains prior to press start up. Our Operators are then able to “fine tune” register and color to meet each customer’s exact requirements.
Ink and Coating
The inks we use are manufactured by environmentally conscious INX. Our sheet fed inks are vegetable oil based (primarily soy) and approved for food packaging. Even our heatset inks contain soy based materials. All vegetable oils are naturally renewable resources, which not only gives you a high quality job through the best ink technology available, but it also helps the environment. Our scrap ink is recycled ensuring no ink is ever put into a landfill. Even our coatings are environmentally friendly. Our UV and water based coatings are VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) Free and we use “Thermal Oxidizing” technology to destroy volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants that are produced during the printing process.
Paper
One of the biggest decisions you have to make when designing a project is specifying the paper to use. Besides price; basis weight, grade, shade, finish, certifications, recycled content and sustainability need to be taken into consideration. Good News, we can help. We print on a wide range of papers including those with Post Consumer content up to 100%, allowing you a wide range of options.
Industry Certification
Our environmental initiatives are not only appreciated by our customers, but by others outside the printing industry. We pride ourselves on having received certificates from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®) A.C. as well as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI®). To maintain our certifications from each organization, we are audited annually.
Continuous Improvement
For the last 25 years, our facility has been continuously improving by keeping all of the operating systems up to current building and environmental codes. Nahan has staff members who focus on our carbon footprint to ensure we are in compliance with local, state, and federal regulations. We are continuously learning different methods to reduce CO2 emissions and increase energy conservation, be more energy efficient throughout our facility and operations, as well as recycle, reuse, and reclaim waste.
And That’s Just the Beginning…
To learn more about our environmental initiatives and how we are continuously improving towards an even more environmentally conscious facility, get in touch with us by submitting a “Let’s Chat” inquiry.
Bio: Jayden Johnson is our Marketing Intern. He started working at Nahan in November 2018. Jayden is a student at St. Cloud State University and will graduate Magna Cum Laude with his B.S in Marketing, minors in Community Psychology and Management, and a Certificate in Professional Selling Specialization. In his spare time, Jayden enjoys hanging out with family and friends, traveling, and bowling.
