Reduce your customer’s job cost by $10,000 and you’re certain to get some kudos. If $10,000 cuts the job cost in
half, you’re likely to have that customer’s business for a long, long time. It’s
unlikely, however, that you’re going to achieve such huge savings without
doing something differently such as using the customer’s data more efficiently
and effectively. We’ve helped lots of print shops deliver dramatic savings to customers (and higher profits for themselves). You’ll
see in the following example how simple and straightforward it is.
Say you have a hypothetical customer who manages 100 offices (stores, outlets, salespeople or whatever). Your hypothetical customer wants to announce a special offer (sale, discount, opportunity or whatever) to the top 100 customers for each the 100 offices. The offer is exactly the same for all customers and is to be made via direct mail postcards with each local offices’ return address on the postcards.
Say you have a hypothetical customer who manages 100 offices (stores, outlets, salespeople or whatever). Your hypothetical customer wants to announce a special offer (sale, discount, opportunity or whatever) to the top 100 customers for each the 100 offices. The offer is exactly the same for all customers and is to be made via direct mail postcards with each local offices’ return address on the postcards.
There are two basic ways
to accomplish this
1) Your hypothetical customer sends text and artwork so each office can have postcards printed and mailed to its’ top 100 customers (literally, 100 static postcard mailing jobs), or
2) You use some data management and a little VDP to do the entire mailing as a single job.
A simple “back of the cocktail napkin” estimate suggests that option 1) would have a total cost to your hypothetical customer of approximately $20,000 or $200 for each of the 100 offices. We estimate the $200 this way. Postage for the one hundred 6” x 9”postcards is almost $50. Each office likely spends at least $50 (one hour or more) in time to manage the job and get material, artwork and its mailing list to the local print shop. The local print shop would have to set up the artwork and print file (at least adding the return address), printing, cutting, addressing, putting postage on and mailing the 100 postcards. We guesstimate the print shop would charge at least $1 per postcard or $100. The price tag for your hypothetical customer ends up at $20,000 ($50 postage + $50 office time + $100 print & mail cost times 100 offices).
Alternatively, you might do the same (or better) job for $10,000 or less. Here’s how…
Your hypothetical customer gives you the 100 mailing lists. You combine them into a single, clean and formatted list of 10,000 addresses pre-sorted for a Standard mailing. You set up your artwork and do a simple VDP merge that applies the various return and mailing addresses. Print, cut, sort and mail the 10,000 postcards. We estimate that costs:
$2,800 in postage (saving $2,000 for presorted Standard vs First Class)
$1,500 ($15 worth of time per office) to have the 100 mailing lists emailed to your hypothetical customer, and
$700* for data management work (merging, cleansing formatting & presorting).
That leaves $5,000 of our $10,000 estimated cost for digital printing, cutting, sorting and mailing the 10,000 postcards. Besides a substantial cost reduction, your hypothetical customer will also know that all the postcards were mailed (or which didn’t) and on what date. There won’t be any need to check up on 100 different offices for status updates.
This not-so-hypothetical example demonstrates the job cost savings potential of combining data or mailing lists. There’s no magic or mystery. It’s simply taking advantage of economies of scale while also avoiding multiple “per job” or minimum costs. While you'll probably never be faced with a hundred mailing lists, even combining a half dozen lists can yield cost savings of 40 to 50% on some jobs.
Keep your eyes (and mind) open. Opportunities for significant cost savings with data or mail list combining are actually fairly common but too often overlooked. Of course, if you need help with data management, VDP print files or optimizing a data-combination job, just give us a call.
* If this seems like a lot, consider how many combinations and permutations of formatting, arrangement, font, case, file type, etc. you can get when 100 people independently prepare their own mailing lists. While not technically challenging, it requires time and care to conform that many lists.
1) Your hypothetical customer sends text and artwork so each office can have postcards printed and mailed to its’ top 100 customers (literally, 100 static postcard mailing jobs), or
2) You use some data management and a little VDP to do the entire mailing as a single job.
A simple “back of the cocktail napkin” estimate suggests that option 1) would have a total cost to your hypothetical customer of approximately $20,000 or $200 for each of the 100 offices. We estimate the $200 this way. Postage for the one hundred 6” x 9”postcards is almost $50. Each office likely spends at least $50 (one hour or more) in time to manage the job and get material, artwork and its mailing list to the local print shop. The local print shop would have to set up the artwork and print file (at least adding the return address), printing, cutting, addressing, putting postage on and mailing the 100 postcards. We guesstimate the print shop would charge at least $1 per postcard or $100. The price tag for your hypothetical customer ends up at $20,000 ($50 postage + $50 office time + $100 print & mail cost times 100 offices).
Alternatively, you might do the same (or better) job for $10,000 or less. Here’s how…
Your hypothetical customer gives you the 100 mailing lists. You combine them into a single, clean and formatted list of 10,000 addresses pre-sorted for a Standard mailing. You set up your artwork and do a simple VDP merge that applies the various return and mailing addresses. Print, cut, sort and mail the 10,000 postcards. We estimate that costs:
$2,800 in postage (saving $2,000 for presorted Standard vs First Class)
$1,500 ($15 worth of time per office) to have the 100 mailing lists emailed to your hypothetical customer, and
$700* for data management work (merging, cleansing formatting & presorting).
That leaves $5,000 of our $10,000 estimated cost for digital printing, cutting, sorting and mailing the 10,000 postcards. Besides a substantial cost reduction, your hypothetical customer will also know that all the postcards were mailed (or which didn’t) and on what date. There won’t be any need to check up on 100 different offices for status updates.
This not-so-hypothetical example demonstrates the job cost savings potential of combining data or mailing lists. There’s no magic or mystery. It’s simply taking advantage of economies of scale while also avoiding multiple “per job” or minimum costs. While you'll probably never be faced with a hundred mailing lists, even combining a half dozen lists can yield cost savings of 40 to 50% on some jobs.
Keep your eyes (and mind) open. Opportunities for significant cost savings with data or mail list combining are actually fairly common but too often overlooked. Of course, if you need help with data management, VDP print files or optimizing a data-combination job, just give us a call.
* If this seems like a lot, consider how many combinations and permutations of formatting, arrangement, font, case, file type, etc. you can get when 100 people independently prepare their own mailing lists. While not technically challenging, it requires time and care to conform that many lists.
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