It has developed a web-based product that provides integrated and automated direct marketing campaigns that mix print, web, e-mail and SMS and that firms can hook into their own CRM systems.

Intimis director Matt Mills said that the service quadrupled response rates and halved customer acquisition costs for one brand owner. "As a marketing campaign that's extremely effective," he added.

This would remove the argument against using personalised digital print due to per piece cost compared to standard print. Mills also said that compared to the overall cost of a campaign print was a small component.

He described the firm as a new breed of marketing service provider that sat between the DM agency, client and printer.

The Bristol-based firm, which is owned by DM agency Proctor & Stevenson, has a relationship with Hewlett-Packard as a preferred business partner.

It is already working with HP Indigo users The London Digital Print Group and Slough-based Lorien for its print output.

It is looking for more printers to handle the anticipated volumes of personalised print, which Mills said would be in excess of 60m per year.

At the moment due to its relationship with HP and the combination of the HP Indigo print quality, including special colour handling, and integration of its workflow with HP's Production Flow workflow, it only uses HP Indigo printers.

But Mills said the firm would not rule out using firms with other digital printing as long as print quality and ability to integrate simply with its workflow were possible. For workflow integration the firm uses the PPML standardised file format for digital print workflows.

One of the firm's clients, Wyse Technology, won an award for best sales and marketing led CRM project at the 2004 CRM Industry Awards.

Story by Barney Cox