A direct mail firm has gone global after landing a £500,000 contract in Asia and Australasia.

Mail and Print Services in Bishop Sutton, North Somerset, founded just over a year ago by Rob Fagnani, will be handling a two-year digital mailing campaign for Dumex, part of Cow & Gate.

The campaign, which started just before Christmas in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam, is the result of six months of research by the firm, which is handling the pre-press set up and managing the printing process.

Cow & Gate eventually plans to expand the Dumex mailing to include Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia and China.

"The biggest challenge was to master all the different languages, particularly in Thailand, who have no gaps between individual words, making it difficult to wrap text," said Rob.

"We bought in global fonts for the languages, while proof reading is carried out by agencies in each country."

He added: "All of the mailings are personalised with text and images and provide advice and guidance for the mother at each stage of pre and post birth.

"This is especially relevant in Asia, where babies stay on baby milk until the age of two.

"New mums are also given the opportunity to upload photographs of their babies for inclusion on their mailers – it really is a personal service."

The firm gets addresses from hospitals registering pregnancies and from people logging on to the Dumex website. As a contingency, the firm holds the data in three sites.

"We approached both XMPie and Xerox to source printers in Asia and the finished documents are sent out by Swiss Post from Singapore to all the countries involved," said Rob.

Rob travelled hundreds of thousands of air miles sourcing print partners. "We are using a number of different digital print partners in Thailand and Singapore, so we can split quantities if required as well as give the client contingency," he said.

To make it easier he also attended special training courses to learn about the different customs in each of the countries.

"I can now meet with the various businesses and exchange greetings in their language. I also understand the protocol – so the effort has been worthwhile," he said.