How to Sell Variable Data Printing with Confidence

Confidence is critical to selling anything. Just as animals can sense fear, customers are quick to perceive a lack of confidence on the part of a salesperson. Once this happens, customers’ apprehension levels increase and the sales process rapidly deteriorates. Offering and executing variable data printing (VDP) jobs, while turning a profit, can have so many uncertainties that exuding confidence is a challenge –

• Can I deal with the customer’s data efficiently?
• What if I bring up VDP job and can’t deliver what the customer ultimately wants?
• Will he want a special effect or something else I can’t do in-house?
• Are my staff and software up to the challenge?
• How many hours will all the data and file work take?
• Where do I go if I have a problem with some part of this job?

Any or all of these questions can certainly be confidence-busters. If it’s not obvious, the questions all boil down to a simple point: how do I create the VDP print files and how much will they cost? If the answers to all of these questions were clear and simple, the confidence in selling VDP would be much higher. 

 

Printers commonly outsource all sorts of work such as data cleansing and mail presorting. Why? They do it because they can’t do the work in-house or they can get it done cheaper/better/faster by outsourcing it. Why not outsource the VDP print file-related work, or, at least, all of the parts that raise questions and reduce confidence? 

Even print shops regularly selling and printing VDP jobs can have issues: a customer wants a tough special effect, the in-house is out for a week or there’s just too much work to do. Again, outsourcing would be the answer to keep things going.

Where do you find this outsourced VDP resource? You’re already there.

VDP Security Opportunities

There is no question that security has become increasingly important in modern society. The capability of VDP to create thousands of unique printed pieces provides some interesting security-related opportunities for printers.

Consider large gatherings such as business meetings or entertainment events. We recently created VDP print files for 6,000+ tickets for a nationally televised major awards program. Sorry, we can’t say which one…for security reasons. We were not privy to the security procedures, but the organizers did have a database with the identity of the celebrity invitees and each ticket had a unique bar code.

In this situation, the organizer might have used various techniques to verify the identities of ticketholders. Having scanned the bar-coded ticket, the ticket collectors could ask for something as simple as ticketholders’ phone numbers or even required some type of photo ID to compare to the database of invitees.

Depending on the type of event, there can be the potential to include the addressing directly on the ticket or invitation itself which could simplify mailing, increase security and deter counterfeiting.

Similar VDP techniques could be used to put personally identifying URLs, codes, serial numbers, QR codes, etc. on mailed pieces to verify receipt or access by the proper person, not unlike the process used by credit card companies. Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of VDP relative to security is the use of variable graphics to include photographs.

Our customers often use variable graphics to include pictures of their representatives on promotional pieces for personalization purposes. However, it also affords recipients a measure of security by knowing that the person knocking at the door resembles the picture they received in the mail. More and more companies providing “at home” services are moving in this direction.

Keep a look out for opportunities to provide or recommend the security-related opportunities with VDP. Customers may not readily recognize the need or the security potential of VDP. It’s a question that could bear interesting fruit. Besides, security-related applications, by their nature, may be less sensitive to price than other printing projects.

John Lennon and Variable Data Printing

What if John Lennon had envisioned a perfect world of variable data printing in his song, Imagine?. Perhaps it would go something like the following. In case you need some help, here's a link to the tune so that you can sing along to create an interactive multimedia blog experience - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCuzpB5p9hg

Imagine there’s no software

It's easy if you try

No need for merging

Just download all the files

Imagine all the printers

Printing VDP, ooh hoo

Imagine that there's no data

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to cleanse or presort

And no addressing too..

You get the idea.

Imagine if there were such a world of VDP, what would you do? What could you do? Here are some potential answers –

• Sell VDP with more confidence
• Discard concerns about dealing with the customer’s data
• Create any type of personalization
• Reduce the amount of work you send to the mail house
• Freely design VDP campaigns as simply or as extravagantly as you desire
• Don’t worry about keeping or hiring a VDP staff person…maybe you wouldn’t want one
• Show customers the value of data enhancement
• Forget about software and maintaining proficiency
• Always know your costs for a VDP job before quoting
• Expand your business without adding specialized staff

Just as John Lennon had visions of a world of peace and harmony, we have visions of a day when printers are free to use VDP any way they want to grow their businesses and better satisfy their customers.

The world of perfect VDP is closer than you think…http://www.digitalformattingservices.com/

CPrint Surprises

Being a new Premiere Partner for CPrint International Affiliates, we sent our CTO, Dave, to their Annual Sales Conference outside of Chicago last month. Of course, we are delighted to be working with all of the CPrint folks.

The first surprise about this event is that we cannot keep Dave from reminding us how impressed he was with all of the presentations. As a former print shop owner, it’s hard to impress Dave on print shop-related topics. Therefore, our hats are off to CPrint on that count. The rest of us at DFS had the additional surprise that someone could get Dave into a coat and tie.

The second surprise came the day after the conference. A CPrint Affiliate contacted us to say he had just “lost” his VDP person and needed some help. Happily, we had a new customer and the Affiliate got more VDP capability than he previously had while not feeling pressured to find a new VDP person immediately.

Sweet CPrint surprises!

QR Codes: Tattooed or Tasty?

Amid the quandry about good uses for QR codes comes two new stories - one quite clever and one blantantly bizarre.

A supermarket chain took advantage of several characteristics of life in Korea to use QR codes to more than double their sales. Cleverly, they replicated the supermarkets' shelves on subway platforms so that commuters can shop with their smartphones and have their groceries delivered when they arrive at home.

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/koreas-tesco-reinvents-grocery-shopping-with-qr-code-stores-20110628/

On the other end of the scale and demonstrating the potential to be a future Darwin Award candidate, a man has a QR code tattooed on his chest that links to a whiskey company's Facebook page. There are so many things wrong with this, we can't even begin to cover them. After all, how can you focus the smartphone when the QR code's on your chest?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20078153-71/man-has-qr-code-tattooed-onto-chest-really/

The use of QR codes by the supermarket points to one of the better uses of QR codes - allowing the user to collect and use lots of information. For many smartphone users, scanning a single QR code to see a website is more trouble than it's worth. But, being able to scan lots of QR codes to get something done makes the effort worthwhile.