In 1988, Mike Stevens, the owner of Express Press, founded Ink Inc., an ad agency specializing in designing direct-mail marketing materials for the printing industry.

At the time, Mike was spending about $2,000* dollars a month creating his print shop's monthly mailers using local free-lance writers and designers. Although the results from the mailings were encouraging, two thousand dollars in monthly creative fees was almost over-whelming.

Mike was frustrated that it was so time-consuming and expensive to create his own direct-mail marketiing for his print shop. That's when he had the idea of trying to sell art slicks (remember those?) to other printers that contained the same artwork he was producing and using. He hoped he could convince enough printers to use his artwork so that he would essentially get his own direct-mail for "free."

Even though several of his printer friends told him the idea was "nuts", Mike went ahead and mailed information about his direct-mail artwork program to 4,500 members of the National Association of Quick Printers (NAQP).

It didn't take long for results to start coming in. At the end of the first month, 11 printers were paying $100 a month to subscribe to the new company's program. At the end of the second month, 28 printers had joined up, and by the end of the first year, Ink Inc. had over 100 subscribers in 22 states. Ink Inc. was a hit! Many printers reported that Ink Inc. was able to provide them with much better artwork than they could design in their own shop, at a fraction of the time and cost.

As printers began to tell their printer friends of their success using monthly direct-mail marketing from Ink Inc., the company just kept growing. Today, more than 550 subscribing printers mail over 660,000 pieces of Ink Inc.'s direct-mail marketing materials to businesses in their cities each and every month.

Through the years, 16 different competitors have tried and failed to copy the Ink Inc. "formula." Apparently, it's not as easy as it looks. To come up with creative new ideas month in and month out is a daunting task, but Ink Inc. has stood the test of time and remains a trusted source of direct-mail marketing ideas for printers.

* $3,554.15 adjusted for inflation.