Production and Paper Special Report: Get Smart About Print

Combat production challenges with technologies that stretch your direct mail dollars

June 2006 By Hallie Mummert

multipage

Bogle concurs, adding that while marketers seem most focused on their campaign’s packaging right now, they also will benefit from ensuring their offers stand out to audiences, too.

Finally, by striving to develop mail pieces that are as relevant to recipients as possible, marketers are producing more print versions. Whether marketers use traditional printing technology, variable data imaging or some combination thereof, Bogle explains that this approach always involves more time and cost. And there is another challenge driving the versioning movement, says Haskel. Complying with marketing regulations means state-by-state disclosure copy, which makes the approval and sign-off processes more cumbersome. All of these hurdles slow a campaign’s speed to market, a significant detraction in today’s competitive marketplace.

Emerging Technologies
One of the more revolutionary technologies coming into its own is Web-to-print solutions. Basically, says Bogle, these solutions are Web-based software that allow direct mail novices and pros alike to assemble a mail piece from templates. This technology most often is used by large companies with diverse sales networks—e.g., retail franchises, field sales offices—that need the ability to tailor campaigns to meet local objectives while maintaining corporate brand standards and staying on budget. Goldsmith notes that he also is seeing more adoption of these Web-based tools, and advocates their use by both large and small marketing operations.

Addressing the speed-to-market issue, online proofing is coming in handy. According to Haskel, “Online proofing allows multiple, simultaneous views [of a mail piece] for approvals—e.g., from legal, production, marketing—to keep cycle time in check and allow marketers to prioritize versions on their end and for the supplier.”

And while it’s not exactly a direct mail production technology, the printing of various barcodes on a mail piece has quite a bit to do with the creative techniques a marketer can use for outer envelopes and self-mailers. To this end, Goldsmith points to the USPS’ One Code that is set to launch this fall. Also called the four-state code, this barcode contains 65 digits and looks nothing like the traditional barcodes marketers currently use, he explains. With ascending and descending bars, the One Code can hold all the mailing information presently contained in the numerous barcodes marketers apply for mail tracking, address correction and other mail services. What this means for marketers, Goldsmith says, is more room on the mail piece for stronger graphics and messaging, as the barcode clearance area will be reduced.

While a number of printing advancements have applied more to low-volume runs, incremental improvements to inline production offer greater efficiencies to high-volume mailers. Better software for programming variable information combined with more inline finishing options have elevated marketers’ ability to leverage inline production cost efficiencies on self-mailers, says Bogle. While printing companies have offered variable inkjet imaging on inline production for 15 to 20 years, he says, software enhancements now make it routine to include a tremendous amount of variability on inline mail pieces. For example, he explains, 10 years ago retail coupons might have featured a dollar savings amount that changed based on a marketing profile. “Now, you’ll have 15 to 20 variables playing into the creation of a single coupon.”

Print quality seems to be a thing of the past, too. “If you’re a savvy production person, you’re gonna know which pieces are produced inline versus traditional methods. But the average consumer has no clue—and really, the average consumer is who you’re trying to communicate with,” Bogle says.

Current Technologies to Leverage
Sometimes it’s easier to hunt for new technologies to solve your problems, but don’t overlook current tools that might offer you just as much benefit. Both Goldsmith and Bogle advise marketers who aren’t using commingling services to investigate this option. “[Marketers] are not as focused on maximizing their postage spend; that will probably be changing in the near future, because of the rate hike,” says Bogle.

Commingling benefits marketers who mail small quantities the most, as the piggybacking of their drops onto large marketers’ campaigns results in finer mail sortation and injection of their mail pieces further into the mail stream. Thus, Goldsmith points out, they get better postal savings and delivery performance. Keep in mind that the small-volume marketer often needs to match its mailing schedule to that of the large-volume marketer; marketers might have to weigh the postal savings against any sacrifices on when their mail drops and investments to meet mail production deadlines.

Other cost-cutting options on the postal front include reducing paper weight, page counts and trim sizes, if possible. Since postage is based on a mail piece’s size and weight, anything marketers can do to reduce either—or both—of these elements will provide savings. For example, Goldsmith offers, companies that mail catalogs, magalogs or other types of multipage formats might benefit from selective binding to create pieces that are targeted to recipients’ interests based on previous buying behavior or other data that offers insight into potential needs and wants.

The other side of the ROI coin is finding a way to lift response enough to justify the extra cost it invariably takes to bring in more orders, donations or leads. Bogle has seen marketers successfully test a variety of production techniques in recent months. “Marketers are experimenting with unique shapes for their mail pieces, such as square shapes and, really, sizes that are frowned upon by the USPS. Since the postal service has incentives to make mail pieces all the same, they tend to be all the same. So when somebody does something different, the one square mail piece stands out in the mailbox more than all the [efforts] that follow the rules.”

In addition to shape, both paper textures and finishes are popular—even shrink-wrapping and poly-wrapping to give packages a different feel. Bogle refers to a beauty products marketer that is getting good response to a varnish on its self-mailer that gives the outer form a silky finish.

In the Who’s Mailing What! Archive, a direct mail library and research service provided by North American Publishing Co. (Target Marketing’s parent company), some trends have been on the rise for a year or more. They include the insertion of plastic or paper cards into envelope packages and self-mailers, where the card is a coupon to be used at retail or via direct channels; Post-it® Notes affixed to outer envelopes and self-mailers, used mainly as coupons or calls to action that also emphasize the key selling points of the mailing; and efforts that strip back the number of package components by driving recipients to general or personalized microsites, which allows for less costly variable data presentation.

On the Horizon: Digital’s Big Play
Looking to the future, Bogle thinks the big production breakthroughs yet to come are going to be on the digital front. Digital printing is growing by double-digit rates, he says, whereas offset printing is not seeing that level of progress.

At the present, digital printing technology still is best suited to low-volume print runs, but it offers complete customization on every piece. Plus, Bogle notes, the presses are getting faster compared to where they started out roughly a decade ago. “There are Fortune 500 companies like Xerox and HP that are devoting significant R&D resources to digital print. They have stated as a goal, that they intend to replace commercial printing processes in the future, and I think they can do that—or at least start doing that—in the next 10 years.”

Goldsmith finds that plenty of marketers—especially financial service firms—have not moved toward digital print production because they don’t trust their data enough to do personalization or customization. The last thing a bank wants to do is get a customers’ information wrong and make him question the wisdom of doing business with it.

But with increasing investments in database technologies and the right staff (or outside help) to implement them, it might not be too long before digital printing takes off for many other less sensitive business sectors. Industries like travel, automotive, B-to-B, telecommunications and high tech have been experimenting with digital printing for years, and discovering ways to greatly increase response.

“The ROI is there for customized pieces, if you do it intelligently and if you’re able to make something that’s relevant. As consumers, we all understand the issue of relevance, but we don’t always operate our businesses that way,” says Bogle.

• MORE ON
• DIRECT MAIL & POSTAL
• PRINT PRODUCTION & FULFILLMENT