The Magic Bullet for Small Print Shops

When confronted by difficult or complex situations, it’s normal to look for easy solutions, painless cures and so-called “magic bullets”. Magic bullets supposedly work almost instantly, require no significant effort or investment and have no adverse effects. Small and quick printers need not search for magic bullets to improve their businesses…they can get them from any unicorn. Seriously, you can find magic bullets if you look in the right places.

Not-So Magic Bullets

Before telling you where to look, it’s important that we understand why so many supposed magic bullets have proven ineffective…why so many printers get so little out of the vast array of tools promoted by the print industry. Suppliers may argue to the contrary, but most magic bullets are too expensive, too complicated and/or require skills small printers don’t have and can’t readily acquire. Many magic bullets may work well for larger print shops with adequate financial and staff resources, but for small and quick printers they’re duds right out of the box. 

The website development magic bullet, for example, doesn’t work for many small printers because they don’t have the necessary skills of online marketing, copywriting, programming, search engine optimization, etc. Marketing services might seem like a viable magic bullet for small printers, but the websites (or lack of thereof) and online presence of many small and quick printers indicate this is likely to be another misfire. 

Many magic bullets such as QR codes, promotional items, email campaigns, signs and banners never left the gun for many small printers. Perhaps the classic case was the variable data printing magic bullet that ended up being nothing more than a very loud blank cartridge. Small printers bought VDP software by the truckload but were thwarted by the breadth of skills and extra software needed to create data-driven print files. 

What Are Magic Bullets?

All of this points out that magic bullets for small printers must be affordable, easy to use and sell and require minimal or no additional skills in order to be beneficial. See if you think the following three examples meet the criteria of magic bullets:

Magic Bullet #1 – DIY Mailings

You print pre-addressed postcards on your digital press using print files made from your customer’s design and address list. You cut, sort and drop off the job at the post office…done! You do all of this without buying any software, without studying the postal regulations, without cleaning up the customer’s address list, without filling out the USPS paperwork and without selling anything. If you know how to print, cut, count and the location of your post office, this is a potential magic bullet for you.

Magic Bullet #2 – Simple Personalization

Your customer needs tickets or forms which include unique numbering and a custom barcode. You send out the customer’s artwork and numbering/barcode requirements to a vendor who sends you printer-ready files, imposed the way you want, for your digital press. You print, cut and deliver the job without knowing anything about barcodes or creating them and without any new software or special skills. This fits the requirement of a magic bullet and you probably don’t even have to do any selling (customers usually don’t care how you things done). 

Magic Bullet #3 – Capturing VDP Opportunities

Your largest customer says his new marketing campaign requires mailing 20,000 self-mailers per month for about a year. He then says he needs to include some variable data such as image swapping, personalized salutations and the local agent’s contact details for each recipient. You simply say. “Send me your artwork and data and I’ll take care of it”. You contact your VDP print file vendor and forward him the customer’s material. Your vendor does all the data and address processing work and creates the VDP files for you to print. After printing and approving the proofs, you print, cut, sort and mail the jobs…month-after-month. Your biggest customer has become even bigger. You’ve done little more than find your vendor, take an order and do what you do best: printing and satisfying customers. Wouldn’t you call that a magic bullet? 

Look again at the three situations above and see how they fit the requirements for magic bullets: 

• Easy to use (you outsource the data and print file work then you print and deliver)
• Easy to sell (in many cases, selling isn’t necessary)
• Minimal or no additional skills needed (any skills relate primarily to taking orders)
• No upfront investment (services are pay-as-you-go)
• Immediate application (you can start selling and using today)
• You’ll have to trust us about the cost…but that’s a great reason to call

We aren’t unicorns but we do have plenty of magic bullets for you. Get yours and put them to work.

Web: www.ez-vdp.com

Phone: 888 977 4711 x134

Email: support@ez-vdp.com

USPS = VDP

Maybe you missed the memo. Just in case, we’ll give you the message again:

"You can’t do variable data printing (VDP) unless you do mailing in-house! No mailing…no VDP!"

It should be obvious. Let’s say you use VDP to print a thousand postcards personalized with the recipients’ first names and the data and the amount of their last donation to the charity sending the postcards. How do you now put mailing addresses on those postcards after you’ve printed them? Send the postcards and the mailing list to the mail house and have them do it? Wrong! You don’t have a way to match each personalized postcard to right correct mailing address. It’s impossible to apply addresses to personalized pieces after they’ve been printed unless it’s done manually. 

When you use VDP to personalize printed pieces, the mailing addresses must be included on the pieces at the time the print files are created. In this way, the personalized pieces come out with the mailing addresses already on them. There’s no way to make a mistake addressing and no need to have the pieces addressed later. However, you end up with postcards ready to be mailed. What do you do?

Why not just mail them?

If the postcards have a mailing permit indicated on them, it’s near certainty someone has created a set of documentation for presentation at the Post Office to mail the postcards. All you need to do is to put the pieces in the proper mailing containers – available free at your local USPS location.

The bottom line…there’s no point in even considering doing variable data printing until you’ve figured out how to do VDP addressing and in-house mailing. Personalized pieces have to be accurately delivered to recipients and this is nearly always done via direct mail. The few cases of VDP that don’t require mailing are limited to things such as sequentially numbered forms, event tickets or giveaway pieces with tracking numbers or URLs.

When you're ready to do your in-house mailing and move on to VDP...give us a call. We're the experts at helping digital print shops grow.

Frogs That Print

Here’s the theory: typical print shop owners are like frogs. The question is whether that’s a flat, sun-bleached road-killed frog, a steamy hard-boiled frog or a happy, thriving frog. What type of frog are you?

Before we get to the frog thing, we need to take a simple look at the progression of print shop printing: 

• Thirty years ago everyone did only offset printing,
• Twenty years ago, some printers started digital printing, but it was still mostly offset,
• Ten years ago, many printers were doing offset and digital - and many “digital only” quick printers were popping up,
• Now, more and more print shops are dumping their offset equipment and outsourcing their offset printing…keeping the digital printing in-house

Of course, there are always exceptions, but you get the general idea. There's no question that digital printing is overtaking offset printing at an accelerating rate. There’s no question that the face (and location) of the printing competition is rapidly morphing. In the “offset days”, printers could identify virtually all of their competitors. The internet and the “digital” explosion, however, have made the competitive environment much broader and more complex: on-line print providers, office supply stores, mail houses and letter shops, mailing stores, the post office, integrated marketers, quick print shops, and even some customers (doing their own digital printing).

What kind of frog are you?

Flat, sun-bleached road-killed frogs - These are print shop owners offering only (or mainly) offset printing. Running back-and-forth across the highway to chase a shrinking number of offset opportunities, it’s only a matter of time until…splat…offset printing becomes a money-losing proposition (if it isn’t already).  

Steamy hard-boiled frogs - These are digital printers offering only static printing. They sit contentedly in their pan of water…but, they don’t see that the competition has set the burner on “high”. They adjust to the increasing water temperature until one day they find themselves financially boiled.

Happy, thriving frogs - These are digital printers that recognize the result of sitting in water racing to a boil. They realize customers increasingly need and use data to communicate...and to print those communications. They understand that they can get out of the hot water, and into a happier place, by making data and communication easier, more efficient and more profitable for customers. 

OK. Perhaps it’s a silly analogy. We apologize if you don’t like being compared to a frog, but here' the reality check:

• Anybody can have a digital press these days
• The barriers to digital printing are already very low and falling
• Do you sit in boiling water or are you in a happy data-digital place?
• Do web sites, banners, promotional items or email services put much work through your digital press?

See how we can help you out of hot water.

Handling Lousy Mailing Lists

What do you do when a print customer hands you a mailing list that hasn’t been used in years? You could assure the customer you’ll process the list through the NCOA to identify bad or changed addresses. That solves the problem. Right?

When you get 20% or more of the mailed pieces returned as undeliverable, there’s bound to be some blowback. At best, the customer is going to wonder what went wrong…more likely, what you did wrong. Now what? You can rip the list to shreds while cursing at the customer for having a terrible list. Explain how you are filing a formal complaint with the USPS about shoddy service. Suddenly pretend you don’t speak English. In tough situations, claim you need emergency treatment after being attacked by a spider high on toner. Or, be better prepared when you are handed a potentially lousy mailing list.

Let’s start with what to do when you get the suspicious list and discuss your options for maximizing the deliverability rate (or at least avoid the blame for lots of returned pieces).

Start by asking a few pertinent questions:

• Where did the list come from?
• When was it used last?
• Was/is it updated regularly?
• What’s the purpose of the mailing? (e.g. carpet bombing or precision strikes)

If the answers are along the lines of “rented it”, “it’s old”, “years ago”, “I don’t remember” and “I don’t know”, there are your red flags.

Fixing Mailing List Delivery Problems

The customer probably expects (or hopes) that you wave a magic wand to turn his lousy mailing list into gold. If you expect that the NCOA (National Change of Address) processing will keep the undeliverable rate low for an old, dubious list - think again!

Consider these points about mailing lists, the NCOA process and deliverability:

• Estimates are that more than 40 million (about 15%) American addresses change each year, but some 15 to 20% of people move without filling out a change of address notice. So, that two-year old mailing list could have 30% of the addresses changed, but only 24% of those changes may be known by the USPS.

• The NCOA is not an address validator. Simply because the NCOA process does not “flag” a record does not mean the piece will be deliverable. The NCOA will only flag those records where a valid change of address notice is on file or those identified as a “nixie” (undeliverable-as-addressed for whatever reason) by the USPS.

• For the consumers’ privacy protection, the NCOA process requires an exact match of name and address in the mailing list (with some nicknames and misspellings excepted). If a mailing list record does not match the name and address on file in the NCOA database, no new address information is provided nor will the address be flagged as being invalid. Because this is such a common misunderstanding, we’ll say it a second time: 

If a name and address in your mailing list do not exactly match the name and address in the NCOA database, it is very unlikely you will receive any sort of information to indicate there is anything wrong with the address. If you do get some information, it will be because: 1) someone has a correct and current change of address notice on file, or 2) the USPS has identified an issue delivering mail to that address.

• The older the list, the more mismatched names and addresses that will likely pass through the NCOA “unflagged” and the more returned pieces.

• The age and maintenance of a mailing list affects deliverability but other factors such as address type (residential, business, etc.), demographics (young, old, students, families, singles, etc.) and the time of year (holidays, vacations, snowbirds, etc.) can also have an affect.

• Undeliverable First Class mail is returned to the sender but undeliverable Standard mail goes in the trash.

• There are non-USPS services that offer to validate addresses. This done by comparing a mailing list to privately owned, frequently used, mailing lists (credit bureaus, insurance companies, magazines, etc.). However, the cost of these services may not be justifiable.

See how counting on the NCOA process can lead you into a deep pile of muck when your customer’s list is lousy?

We’ll help you out of the muck in the next blog.

Are You a Redundant Printer?

We don’t mean redundant as in not needed. What we mean by "redundant printer" is one who needlessly prints the same piece twice. Redundancy can be funny (visualize belt and suspenders), it can be good or it can be a waste of time, effort and money. We’ll look at the ways redundancy can be good or funny and then let you decide if there is anything good or funny (or useful) about redundant printing.

You Can Tune a Piano but You Can’t Tuna Fish

Why do people talk about tuna fish? What’s a tuna if not a fish? No one talks about salmon fish or trout fish. This type of redundancy (called Pleonasm) has found its way into everyday usage. Here are a few others:

“…receive your free gift” - We hear this so often, we ignore the silliness of it. How can anything be a gift if it isn’t free?

“hot water heater” - If you have hot water, do you need to heat it more? Perhaps, it would be more precise to call it a cold water heater, or maybe just leave it at water heater.

There’s another type of linguistic redundancy described on the internet as RAS syndrome (or “Repetitive Acronym Syndrome” syndrome). Do you have RAS syndrome? If you are guilty of using any of the following terms, you definitely have it:

“ATM machine” - Automatic Teller Machine machine

“LCD display” - Liquid Crystal Display display

“Pin number” - Personal Identification Number number

“VDP printing” - Variable Data Printing printing (we know we have RAS)

"Please RSVP" - RSVP is French for répondez s'il vous plaît, or "respond if it pleases you". So, we have "Please respond if it pleases you". Maybe sticking with English acronyms would cut down on RAS.

The What Failed?

There are circumstances when redundancy is good or even critical. Commercial airplanes have redundant control systems to avoid becoming expensive falling objects should the primary controls fail. Hospitals have redundant electrical power supplies (such as backup generators) since doctors aren’t too good at operating in the dark. While those are cases of critical redundancy, sometimes redundancy is simply good. Like chocolate cake with chocolate frosting topped by “Death by Chocolate” ice cream type of good. Have you noticed that choco-holics seem to take perverse pleasure in being redundant?

Redundant Printing

Everyday, hundreds of printers use their digital presses to print postcards (or other self-mailers). They then take the already printed postcards (plus the overs) to a mail house to have someone else print addresses on them with an inkjet printer. Digital presses are certainly capable of printing addresses (better than an inkjet), and the printers’ click charge won’t increase due to printing addresses. Therefore, inkjet addressing qualifies as a type of redundant printing. Factor in all the extra handling, the paperwork, transportation, the hassle and so forth, and it’s hard to find anything funny or useful about this type of redundant printing.

How to Stop Being Redundant

Yes. We know exactly why this type of redundant printing occurs everyday... something about creating print files. We also have a solution that permits printers to print, cut and drop off their self-mailers at the post office - skipping the inkjet addressing and the mail house.

It’s the newest addition to our EZ-VDP^SM services…EZ-VDP^SM Addressing.

Designed for small self-mailer jobs, it eliminates the issues (and costs) involved with using a mail house for inkjet addressing. If your mail house has a minimum charge for inkjet addressing that's more than $40, you ought to take a look at this new service.

Read more about EZ-VDP^SM Addressing…

Finally, there is no need to point out our raging affliction from RAS syndrome. We simply refuse to stop using terms such as “VDP printing” and “VDP print files”.

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The Postman Always Rings Twice

It was a historic 1930s murder-love-mystery novel: The Postman Always Rings Twice. In 1946, it was made into a movie of the same name starring Lana Turner and John Garfield. A remake with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange came out in 1981. It seems plausible that this novel  and the movies have traumatized generations of print shop owners about the post office – NOT! However, we continue to find quite a few print shop owners with an inordinate fear of anything to do with business mailing and the post office.

“What if they won’t take my mailing?”

“I’ve heard stories about…”

“I lost a good customer when the lettershop screwed up his mailing.”

The expressions of fear and anxiety about mailing and dealing with the USPS just keep on coming up.

If this fear isn’t caused by the novel or the movies, perhaps it comes from horror stories or rumors perpetuated by lettershops. But, why would lettershops want to do this? Could it be that they want to keep the print shops dependent on them for addressing and mailing? Certainly not!

Perhaps, the fear comes from having tried to get a straight answer from the Domestic Mail Manual or “DMM” – the holy grail of postal regulations. There’s a document that’s clear as mud and as straightforward as the tax code.

But, business mailing isn’t all that difficult…with the right help.

Our EZ-VDP brand services eliminate virtually all the anxiety about business mailing for print shop owners. We help you through the entire process from getting a mail permit to dropping the mail at the post office the first time. Read more about how easy the business mailing process can be…

Just this week, we have helped at least five print shop owners do their own mailings for the first time. They're not only still alive but smiling.

There’s something else to consider about mailing. The USPS is struggling financially. The volume of mail continues to drop. Even the most ferocious of postal employees must see the handwriting on the wall. The USPS is doing everything they can to make the business mailing as friendly and easy as possible. They have just completely revamped their website to make information about mailing easier to find (but perhaps not understand). Besides, a friendly word (or maybe even a doughnut) probably gets you a long way with anyone at the post office.

Finally, no postman ever appears or is even mentioned in The Postman Always Rings Twice. The author, John Cain, explained that the title was related to the 13 times his manuscript was rejected. Obviously, he wasn’t afraid of the post office.

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