0208 915 1103|sales@thesoftwarebureau.com

About Mark Dobson

Mark entered the DM business in 1986 at the Sudbury based Prolog. Since then Mark has worked for many companies including GWC, Olwen Direct Mail, Olwen International in Baltimore. In 2000 Mark took the role of Client Services Director at The Software Bureau helping users of Cygnus, SwiftSort and GeMMA make the most of the software.

4 Reasons to get Mailmark Ready by 2016

By |2017-01-12T14:32:00+00:00November 24th, 2015|

What is Mailmark? If you are a mail producer or printer that provides direct mail, you will have likely heard of Mailmark. Royal Mail launched the scheme 18 months ago with the aim to put direct mail back on the marketing map. An innovative scanning process enables mail to be tracked and monitored in a comparable way to its digital rivals, while the price point makes Mailmark the most cost effective way to send bulk mail. 4 Reasons to get Mailmark Ready by 2016 As we approach the final weeks of 2015 The Software Bureau has summarised the 4 reasons to become Mailmark ready by 2016. 1.       Price Differential is Being Increased Mailmark is already priced around 1% cheaper than [...]

Read More

Lean DM for Fundraisers

By |2017-01-12T14:36:12+00:00November 11th, 2015|

It is certainly not an exaggeration to say that over the last few months charity fundraising has gone through the wringer. Sparked by the tragic suicide of Britain’s oldest poppy seller, Olive Cooke, who was reportedly extremely distressed by the amount of charity direct mail she received, the national media and in particular, The Daily Mail, called for a review of the way the third sector promotes itself. And it has succeeded with both the ICO and government launching investigations into the issue. Already, recommendations and changes are coming into effect, such as the proposed closure of the self-regulatory Fundraising Standards Board. However, with Christmas just around the corner, traditionally the most lucrative time of year for charity fundraisers, what impact [...]

Read More

Is ‘preference’ a Dirty word?

By |2017-01-12T14:39:25+00:00November 10th, 2015|

For years there have been rumblings about various industry-wide consumer preference services giving  consumers the chance to select (or deselect) channels, sectors and even specific brands they want to hear from. Such movements always provoke mass debate. Justin Basini’s Allow and REaD Group’s Itsmypost.com were two such initiatives that are no longer in existence. Is this because they didn’t work? Or perhaps because opposition from marketers was too strong to ignore? Why have these initiatives failed to gain traction? The question today is were these frontrunners onto something but just a little before their time? One argument against them was that the industry as a collective didn’t approve of any individual company profiting from their perceived misery, which is how many viewed [...]

Read More

Mailmark eManifest Build or Buy?

By |2017-01-12T14:40:58+00:00October 1st, 2015|

Keeping your mailing house or full service print business at the forefront of technology is something you pride yourself on, but it isn’t always easy. Keeping abreast of new machines, software, expertise and changes in postal services are tough to keep up with. Enter Mailmark, the biggest change from Royal Mail since the advent of the postcode. According to the latest adoption update by Royal Mail 21% of all Bulk Mail is now sent with the Mailmark attribute. Already the most cost effective way to send mail, Mailmark is set to have a further price differential introduced in January 2016 which is likely to make it 5% cheaper to mail with Mailmark than any other method. It is pretty clear [...]

Read More

Digital’s loss will be DM’s gain: but only if we’re honest

By |2017-01-12T14:42:27+00:00September 22nd, 2015|

When even WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell admits that something might be up with a medium, you’d be a fool not to take heed. He recently added his tuppence worth into the furore surrounding digital advertising sparked by research from PageFair and Adobe that revealed up to £50bn might be wiped off global digital ad spend next year. To add to the medium’s woes, a separate study from Meetrics estimated that £485m worth of online ads had never been seen as a result of glitches in programmatic buying. While this is highly unlikely to be armageddon for online advertising, such damning statistics will inevitably have some clients running scared and online budgets will resultantly experience shrinkage – two Bellwether Report’s [...]

Read More

Mailmark Ready in 1 Week

By |2017-01-12T14:44:26+00:00September 11th, 2015|

Are you involved in mailings? Are you Mailmark ready? If you are a mail producer, printer or some other supplier of mail services you have probably heard of Mailmark. However there remains a lot of confusion about the steps required to becoming Mailmark Ready. Here are some things you should know about Mailmark and the basic steps you can take to become Mailmark ready within a week. What is Mailmark? Mailmark was introduced in early 2014, and has been billed as a revolution in Mail comparable in impact to the introduction of the Postcode. Royal Mail have invested over £70 million in the project which according to recent update has seen over 1.2 billion items processed. More than 60 mail [...]

Read More

Cygnus Accreditation Launched

By |2017-01-12T14:46:32+00:00September 7th, 2015|

In response to industry demand The Software Bureau is launching The Cygnus Academy, a series of accreditations covering data processing for direct mail production and data hygiene. The accreditations can be gained by attending examined training courses, which will take place around the country throughout the year. The training courses will be offered in three levels; introductory, intermediate and advanced and are open to anyone in the industry, not just Cygnus users. Overview of courses Introductory level: This course is aimed at new recruits and those that have little knowledge of using Cygnus. The course, entitled ‘An Introduction to Cygnus’, will ensure they are capable of not only using the software on a productive level, but also have a rudimentary [...]

Read More

A guide to charity direct mailing tax changes

By |2017-01-12T14:48:23+00:00July 31st, 2015|

As we approach the end of July, the third sector will doubtless be praying for an end to what is commonly termed national media ‘silly season’, when outlets (notably the Daily Mail) declares open season on direct marketing. This year’s pot shots, primarily aimed at charities (aggressive telemarketing and Olive’s Law), rival what the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) coined the ‘Summer of Discontent’ experienced back in 2006 when the Daily Mail crusaded against addressed and unaddressed advertising mail. However, the charity sector isn’t out of the woods yet, for another hunter is waiting in the wings with its gun loaded and has its sights trained on 1st August to make its first shots. This hunter is the tax man. Since [...]

Read More

Onepost and The Software Bureau Join Forces

By |2017-01-12T14:50:28+00:00July 17th, 2015|

The Software Bureau and ONEPOST have collaborated to bring ONEPOST customers and mailing houses a seamless Mailmark software solution. Mailmark is Royal Mail’s new barcode and optical technology for handling bulk mailings. It will replace its OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and CBC (customer barcoding) options. It is part of Royal Mail’s drive to modernise its processes. Mailmark will create more transparency in the mailing system enabling organisations to more easily integrate advertising mail into wider marketing campaigns. Moreover, in order to aid the transition to Mailmark Royal Mail has announced a further price differential from January 2016 which could be as high as five per cent. This will make 1st and 2nd class standard letters significantly cheaper for mailers than [...]

Read More
Go to Top