Re-Think Mailing

It’s no surprise. Given the general downturn in mailing volume (see graph below), many print shop owners are questioning why they should spend several thousand dollars to renew their address presort and processing software. That question usually leads to other questions about printing and VDP software as well all of the time, cost and risk of doing mailing jobs. Add to those more questions about what’s in store regarding the USPS’ delayed Full Service Intelligent Mail Barcode program.

Fortunately, we have an answer. You can outsource all of your data merge and clean up, address list processing and print file creation work to us. You do what you do best: design, printing, finishing, etc. You simply send us mailing lists and artwork. We do all the hard stuff and deliver to you pre-addressed and pre-sorted, printer-ready VDP files imposed and ordered the way you want.

That means there is no software to buy, learn, update or renew or specials skills to learn. It also means you and your staff have more time to do important things such as selling, serving customers and all those things that make your business profitable. You also will likely also come to realize that by outsourcing you have gained a whole new set of capabilities from more data and data management services to all types of personalization and advanced VDP solutions.

Is it time for you to re-think your mailing process? If it is, give us a call.

Digital Formatting Services

Dirty Little Secrets about Variable Data Printing

Secret #1 – 120 Billion

More than 120,000,000,000 pieces are printed in the U.S. each year using VDP. That’s about 400 pieces for every man, woman and child every year! What percentage of those do you produce?

Secret #2 - Software

Variable data printing requires a dozen pieces of software, or more. How many of these do you have and how many can you use?

Most VDP programs are add-on modules to graphics software such as Adobe Creative Suite. Several additional modules for special effects and imposing may also be required.

Fixing up data to for use in VDP may require six, eight or more pieces of software to:

• Open and convert
• Cleanse and de-dupe
• Format and test
• Correct upper/lower case, abbreviations, suffixes, prefixes, etc.
• Sort and analyze
• Enhance

Finally, address list presorting, NCOA, CASS, etc. requires at least one or two pieces of software.

Secret #3 - Presorting

The annual renewal for address list presorting and processing software can cost $3,000 or more. That requires a lot of mailing work to justify the cost when you include the cost of the time spent learning and using the software.

EDDM has reduced the amount of presorted direct mail work in many areas.

Secret #4 – Crossing Over

VDP isn’t just for printing or making fancy images…it’s a crossover technology between print and electronic media. The same data-driven processes used to create VDP print files can also create electronic documents such as personalized PDFs for emailing (also personalized). Moreover, VDP can be used to add security elements to printed or electronic documents, tickets and events.

Secret #5 - Easy

Any digital print shop can easily be in the VDP business without buying or learning any software. Outsourcing mailing list processing eliminates the annual renewal expense. Similarly, the creation of printer-ready VDP print files can be outsourced…leaving the print shop owner with nothing to do but print and deliver VDP jobs.

See how you can easily include new high-value products and services into your business…

www.ez-vdp.com or www.printshopmarketing.com

CPrint, Double Wides and Insourcing

We recently met up with John Giles at the CPrint conference. The conference is always great - learning as much from the attendees as the presenters. Moreover, John is the only person we know capable of interjecting doublewide trailers into a discussion about print shops.

John’s epistle in the May 2012 edition of Quick Printing magazine makes a strong argument for outsourcing a variety of work to broaden service offerings, to increase profits or both. However, we suggest there is at least one case where insourcing (the opposite of outsourcing) may be advantageous.

Consider the print shop owner who faces a minimum charge of $120 or more at the mail house. It’s probably hard to do many small (like 350 piece) postcard jobs profitably at that rate. Outsourcing the address presorting and inkjet printing costs the print shop owner $120. Alternatively, the print shop owner could outsource the address presorting and have VDP print files created at the same time for as little as $60. He prints the pre-addressed VDP files, cuts, sorts and delivers the job to the Post Office - “insourcing” the address printing and mailing process and reducing job costs by $60 or more.

You’re probably thinking, “Yeah, but that’s just trading one type of outsourcing for another.” It might seem that way. Outsourcing the address presorting to the mail house or another service company is certainly similar. However, rather than the mail house inkjet printing the addresses, the print shop prints pre-addressed on its own digital press. The print shop also does the sorting of the pieces in to mail trays and delivering to the Post Office. Therefore, the address presorting is a push and the printing and mailing are “insourced”. Two out of three is a majority, and the bottom line is that the print shop saves money by “insourcing” the mailing process.

Insourcing the mailing process has some other advantages including:

- Avoiding “rush” charges

- Better print quality

- No “overs” to print, and

- Not disclosing print customer identities.

Sure hope we didn’t steal the wheels off John’s outsourcing double wide. 

Eaten by the Mail House

Charles Darwin purportedly said, “In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.” We see Darwinian adaptation in the business world all around us: drug stores selling groceries and grocery stores with pharmacies, car washes doing oil changes and oil change shops washing cars and on and on. It’s move and counter-move with competitors, rather than nature, defining the environment.

Mail Houses Turn Print Shop

With more mail houses going into the retail printing business, what will we see the print shops do…start mailing themselves, stop selling any mailing jobs or offering breakfast burritos with every print job? We know many print shop owners with strategies to avoid becoming a much smaller version of Kodak. The bankruptcy of Kodak (who developed the first digital camera in 1975) points out the consequences of not adapting - of ignoring competitors’ moves - of being oblivious to a changing environment.

One print shop owner recently sent us a very succinct email explaining his version of adapting: “You guys have been very helpful with getting us up to speed on mailing, a totally new activity for us. Prior to now, we have been outsourcing the mailing function. Since the mailing houses are becoming printers, though, we have to become mailers.” That’s simple enough. If the mail shops are going to compete for printing work, he is not going to help them by identifying his customers to them or sending them mailing business.

Good or Bad?

The revelation that the mail house has turned competitor may actually be a blessing rather than a harsh reality. We know numerous print shops that keep paying outrageous prices to mail houses for even the simplest postcard mailing jobs. Other print shops pay more reasonable prices but find it takes three, four or more days for their jobs to be mailed (without paying a premium for expedited service). High costs and/or slow service put the print shops in a less-than-competitive position by over which they have no control. How do maintain or grow business in this type of situation?

So, the mail houses are acting in a predatory fashion by going into the printing business, right? Absolutely...from the print shops' perspective! The mail houses' are acting for their survival just as a leopard that chases down and devours a baby gazelle. Leopards have to eat. Mail houses have to adapt to a slow market and a decreasing number of print shop customers. What does the print shop gazelles do?

One thing you never see on the nature programs is a gazelle standing still while the leopard bears down on it. Nope. Gazelles run like hell to keep from being eaten. Are print shop owners placidly waiting to be eaten by the mail houses or running like hell? We see a growing number of print shop owners who recognize the threat and how they can use VDP to do their mailings in-house. Unfortunately, however, there are also many waiting for the leopard to strike.

Even if you're not in danger of being eaten, you could benefit from doing your own addressing and mailing. That's what our new EZ-VDP Addressing service enables you to do.

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Do You Turn Away VDP Customers?

What do you do when your best customer calls to say that they want to run a direct mail campaign for six months with 50,000 pieces per week and full-blown variable data printing? If you already do VDP on a regular basis, you probably make sure the office door is closed for starters. Then, you jump out of the chair to start doing your best version of the I-scored-a-touchdown happy-dance while spiking your desk stapler (since you have neither a football nor a helmet handy ). Then you gather up your graphic designer, programmer, mailing services manager, production specialist and data expert. Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. Hallelujah!  What? You don’t do VDP?

Surely, you don’t want to turn away your best customer. You may never see him again. Then, your stapler would end up on the floor for a very different reason.

Printers face similar challenges constantly. For example, when a customer wants a print job that requires die-cutting, what do you do? Send him somewhere else? Not likely. You do the job and outsource the die-cutting, right? How about booklets? You probably do the same thing: you print the job and outsource the booklet-making. Addressing and mailing? Yep - same thing. Maybe you can even do some of these in-house. But, variable data printing?

To satisfy your customer, you could outsource the whole job to a printer who can handle VDP (and will insist on printing the job), but where does that leave you? Sure, you’ll make some money on the job, but you may find yourself with a queasy feeling about the whole arrangement. If your customer realizes that you’re just a middleman, you might need a really good story about the value that you add to the effort. Or, you can take charge of the project.

Why not use the same technique you use to handle the die-cutting and booklet-making ...outsource the part of the job you don’t do in-house? Outsource the VDP print file creation, the data work or even the address presorting. You do the graphics work and the printing, and perhaps the coating, mailing and other work. This way, you really are doing the VDP job (or, at least, the majority of it) and you’re adding nearly all of the value to the job. More work in-house? You get that, too.

Don’t turn away your best customer, or any customer, because they want variable data printing. Just know that when the opportunity presents itself, we’re here to handle your VDP print file-related work. When that phone call comes, be ready to start dancing and looking for a new stapler.

While you’re at it, you might want to make sure that your customers know that you do VDP. Notice that we didn’t use the “S” word...selling ( not stapler). Why not simply let customers know they can come to you for VDP. You might be surprised at the response.

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Printers Should Be Asking WWJD?

Yes. We are suggesting printers look for inspiration and guidance by asking, “WWJD?” In this lousy economic environment, it only seems to make sense to ask - What Would Jobs Do? You know, Steve Jobs. If you thought we would attempt to discuss spirituality and printing, we can only say, “Heavens, no.” Steve Jobs is enough to make our point.

In 2003, when the stock market was dipping to 10-year lows, Mr. Jobs was asked why he wasn’t cutting back on Apple’s development of new products. Mr. Jobs’ often-quoted response was, “A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.” Perhaps that’s an answer to our question, “What would Jobs do?”

Many situations change when business slows down as much as it has in the past few years. For printers, this includes situations such as:

• A broad reduction in business volume,
• Long-time customers who disappear or merge,
• Order frequency declines,
• Job runs get smaller,
• Customers want more for their marketing dollar, etc.

The iPod was barely a year old when Mr. Jobs made his comment, above. Apple dominated the personal, portable music player market but was already releasing the third generation of the iPod.  If Steve Jobs had been in the printing business, he might have been looking for ways to provide great [new] products for his print customers. So, what great products can printers offer? There are QR codes, websites, print-on-demand, mobile apps and wide-format, among others. And, there’s variable data printing and PURLs.

Steve Jobs was a big proponent of personalized things, which happens to be one of the primary uses of VDP. We often forget, but the original Apple was touted as a “personal” computer when mainframes were the order of the day. Then, there was the iPod that permitted people to create a personal collection of music to carry around. The iPhone, with its thousands of “apps”, certainly redefined personal mobile …uh…just about anything. If Mr. Jobs had been in the printing industry, there’s no telling where we might be today.

“A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, ...”

This is what a lot of printers have already done…and some continue to do. It is hard to see how to add great new products under such circumstances. Many printers are simply looking for ways to continue offering the same products while no longer having the in-house staff they once had.

WWJD?

Outsourcing is one way printers can maintain, and even expand, their product offerings - following the Steve Jobs concept of “We took a different path.” For example, outsourcing the VDP print file work is a way to control (or reduce) costs while keeping VDP as a product or adding a new product offering. In tough business times, customers may be more willing to try something new. Although a VDP job is more expensive than static print job, the increased effectiveness (in response) might be used as a rationale to send out fewer pieces…and possibly reduce the cost to the customer.

It’s not clear what Mr. Jobs meant exactly when he said, “…putting great products in front of customers.” Why not try putting VDP in front of all your customers. What do you have to lose? If some of them “bite”, we have you covered. If you tried this before, you may find some customers have changed their minds.

There’s no argument that Steve Jobs took a different path - quite successfully. You might want to think about your own version of a different path such as VDP and outsourced file work. Then again, you can always reflect on the original meaning of WWJD.

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