Working with companies including Durex, Scholl and Ideal Shopping as well as a variety of pharmaceutical firms, it is Lick’s marketing experience and can-do attitude that have helped it accomplish its unique goals.

Managing director Linden Kitson was previously a print buyer for a large advertising company and responsible for over £3m worth of print and direct mail. “I often found that printers had a factory mentality and were very much nine-to-five businesses. It was this that frustrated me the most,” he says. He wanted to create a company full of people from “the other side of the fence” who could still work in a factory environment.

What he formed was Lick, “a direct mail firm with a marketing brain”. He explains: “As ex-marketers, we speak the same language as our clients and understand the processes that they are going through. This puts our relationship on a different level.” At its core, the firm offers laser and inkjet personalisation, enclosing and polywrapping; and in addition, it offers print management services to find solutions to any job it can’t produce in-house.

The most recent addition to the business is its e-commerce and fulfilment arm e-Lick. Officially launched seven months ago, e-Lick is housed in a separate 1,100m² facility and handles e-mail campaigns as well as consumer shopping website design and online stock management and distribution. One example is its client Scholl shoes: through Scholl’s website, e-Lick handles the orders and payments for shoes as well as holding and distributing products. “We currently stock about 19,000 pairs of shoes in our warehouse,” says Kitson.

Lick began its e-commerce business over four years ago through work with major client Durex. The firm asked Lick to create an online ordering system for its staff to order print; this later developed into a full consumer site with online payment.

E-Lick now caters for 22 shopping websites and has employed 10 extra staff to handle business. It has even gained a pharmaceutical licence to allow it to store and distribute a range of medicines around the UK. “Our aim is to become part of the team. We are the warehouse for their business; an extension of their own company,” says Kitson.

To further the firm’s relationship with its clients, Lick offers a data management service to improve marketing techniques. “We can supply a host of information at the drop of a hat,” explains Kitson. “For our clients’ mailing campaigns it’s crucial to get as much customer data as possible.”

However, although Lick employs a host of ex-marketers, it does not plan to move into marketing or creative services as some print firms are now doing. In this sense Kitson still holds traditional views of print: “By doing that, you’re diluting your energy. Just stick to what you are good at.”

Lick has approached business from the perspective of its customers and this has paid off. The firm is currently looking for acquisition opportunities and further UK premises. It’s on target to increase its turnover by more than £2m within the next three years. “We want our clients to have as much customer information as possible. At the same time we want to know as much about our own clients as we can,” says Kitson. And it is this attitude that has made all the difference.

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LICK AT A GLANCE
Location Elland, West Yorkshire

Staff 42

Turnover £2.8m (2006)

Clients Retail, pharmaceutical, travel and financial sectors including Bon Marché, National Holidays, Ideal Shopping, Durex and Scholl

Services Laser and inkjet personalisation, enclosing, polywrapping, POS kit collation, storage and distribution and data, print and online stock management

Kit 14 HP 9000 laser printers, two Renaddress inkjet machines, four polywrapping lines, seven enclosing machines