We are constantly asked, “Where can I find VDP business?” The questions tend to be couched in terms of the best type of business or industry to find VDP work. It’s a perfectly natural question since we deal with so many printers doing VDP across the country.
However, when we’ve looked at the types of jobs that have come through our shop, we find they’re all over the map, literally and figuratively: electioneering stuff, local and national retail/consumer stuff, all types of services, fund-raising, school district issues, insurance companies, clubs, associations, etc., etc., etc. There’s just no common denominator that jumps out…except one.
A few days ago, we were going through the same exercise to find the magic bullet for VDP business when one of our more nimble-minded colleagues announced that we may have been looking at things the wrong way. At that point, the rest of us had a collective I Love Lucy moment just like when Ricky would say to Lucy, “I will ‘splain it to you.” With all of our hair seeming to get redder and looks of skepticism all around, someone blurted out, “Start ‘splaining.” - just the way Lucy would mock Ricky’s heavy Cuban accent.
It turns out that there is no correlation that we could make between businesses or industries and volume of VDP work, but there is a strong connection between volume (frequency and job size)…and the source of the business. What we could easily see when we looked at the data a different way was:
- Printers getting work from marketing agencies (or ad agencies) had/have a much higher frequency of VDP work and higher average order sizes.
- When a printer begins to get work from an agency, the order frequency and size usually ramp up quickly.
- There are no identifiable business types or industries that dominate the VDP work originating from agencies.
- Much of the work appears to have been ongoing and the agencies are simply changing printers. [This might explain the rapid increase in work as an agency gains more confidence in a new printer.]
That’s some interesting ‘splaining, Ricky.
There may be more, but we can offer three possible explanations for these results. One might simply be that more people are recognizing the value of personalization. Another could be that agencies are becoming more comfortable promoting VDP as a means to differentiate their services. And, lastly, the sluggish economy might be forcing the agencies’ customers to look for ways to do more with less.
Draw your own conclusion about what the data means. We’ll just note that we do not ask about the source of anyone’s work, however it is often volunteered by our customers during discussions about their jobs.
L-u-u-u-cy!!!
Even Lucy might see that VDP work can come from sources where VDP work is ongoing - either marketing agencies or customers. We can confirm that price and performance have played a key role in some of our customers getting lots of work from marketing agencies. Our EZ-VDP services certainly provide advantages on both counts.
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Here's some original 'splainin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMj9Fm4SBq8&feature=related
