What is Variable Data Printing?
Connecting with costumers on a one on one level has never been easier with variable data printing (VDP). VDP helps companies and advertisers reach and relate to customers on a personalized or individual level. VDP improves the reader rate and response rate of direct mail, generating more customers, and building satisfaction and trust.
VDP does this by making direct mail campaigns customer or region-specific, using data profiles and regional information to inform, personalize, and schedule mailings, addressing customers by name, and adding maps, images, and text that make direct mail seem individualized and local instead of impersonal and boilerplate.
Variable data printing takes advantage of geolocation mapping and customer data to deliver an experience that feels personalized and important. Recent studies have shown that customers are 70% more likely to engage with mail campaigns that feature their names and that personalized mail jumps response rates by at least 15%.
StitchLiner MARK III – Saddle Stitching System
With United Mail’s investment in the StitchLiner MARK III, new variable data printing tasks that would have before been functionally impossible, expensive, and time-consuming are now not just possible, but readily available to be performed for clients and done so with quality, dependability, and consistency.
Variable Print Stitching
Variable print stitching is VDP squared. With variable print stitching, you can print individualized names, maps, coupons, images, etc. within a booklet or brochure. Without the StitchLiner MARK III, tasks such as these would have been much more expensive and time-consuming. Now clients can generate individualized multi-page pieces within budget and on a schedule that suits their needs.
This process makes satisfying budgets and increasing ROI even easier when the same multi-page piece can be used in various regions, with various demographics, and for various customers. Variable print stitching makes it so that you can use the same brochure or pamphlet but with key elements such as local phone numbers, images, or coupons, easily swapped and applied based on customer data, region, demographics, etc. making your single base piece seem personalized. No need to design thousands of individual multi-page pieces when you can simply assign different elements and information to different customer variables. VDP has never been this accessible, fast, or consistent for multi-page pieces.
Variable Print Stitching with Variable Sheets
With the StitchLiner MARK III, VDP is no longer limited to the on-page personalization of image elements, information, maps, etc. Now whole pages can be added in or swapped out based on customer data, regional information, or demographic goals.
The same 10-page booklet can remain applicable to a variety of customers, even if whole pages within the booklet aren’t. Customer #1 might receive pages 1,2,4,6,8 and 9, while customer #2 receives pages 1,2,5,7 and 10. The customers get a select number of relevant pages, avoiding unnecessary printing, information, and customer confusion. Meanwhile, the highly relevant curated selection of pages will help customers feel like they are being spoken to on a more personal level.
Let’s imagine a hypothetical power company. They want to mail a multi-page brief to their 10,000 customers. They want to alert half of them to a local peak usage issue. They want to alert a quarter of them, who live in a historic neighborhood, to the value of an investment in effective insulation. For some customers, who live in areas with low shade and high solar exposure, they want to provide information about photovoltaic investment. They also have a few pages of general information applicable to everyone. Without variable print stitching with variable sheets, this power company would either need to bog down their customers with information that doesn’t even apply to them, or they would need to design and mail several separate pamphlets even though much of the information is applicable to all, and many of the other sections are applicable to overlapping numbers of customers. With the StitchLiner MARK III, customers can instead receive only the information they need, without wasted printing or ground-up redesigns.
Variable Print Stitching with Matching Cover
The advice not to judge a book by its cover never applied to marketing. In business, you have to put your best foot forward. Whether you’re trying to get survey or donation responses, advertise, or just send out information, the best way to make sure your mail piece gets the most eyes on it is to capture recipient interest. You have to snag their attention. One way to ensure that your customers will open and read through your brochure or booklet is with an effective cover. The problem is that the same cover that works for some people will be less effective for others. Further still, covers that seem less boilerplate and are instead more personal are often much more effective. Sometimes companies have a wide range of customers over a large area. The advertisement or information within their booklet might be the same for all of their customers but ensuring that they open and read through it can be difficult with a cover that has to be applicable to so many different customers.
Regionally personalizing a cover is a great way to avoid designing a whole new booklet for a different market. Of course, there’s a lot more you can do with variable print stitching. Cover personalization with variable print stitching is limited only by imagination. For example, say you own a furniture company and you want to mail out a brochure containing product and pricing information. All of the information within the brochure is the same, but the cover can individually entice different demographics to read the material within. One cover, for example, can target new movers, another could be sent to previous customers. The product and pricing information contained within is the same, but the former brochure can welcome new movers to the neighborhood while the latter thanks previous customers for their business and poses the idea that it might be time to update their furniture. Each of these customers will receive the same information within, but they need different introductions in order to better connect with the information. With the Stitcher MARK III, these cost- and time-saving services are finally within reach.
Variable Print Stitching with Variable Sheets and Matching Cover
Now let’s say you want to mail a brochure with a variable cover, but you also want the information inside to be personalized. The Stitcher MARK III is capable of performing cover personalization and variable sheet personalization at the same time.
Looking at our earlier example of the furniture store, let’s say that this furniture company wanted to make their brochure campaign even more effective. The same brochure from before can now include a first-time buyer coupon. This coupon can be included with a cover targeting new movers, as well as a cover targeting customers who haven’t shopped at this furniture company before. A third cover can then target returning customers and include a separate loyalty coupon. Each of the individuals who receive this brochure will feel approached in a more individual way, even though the base information is more or less identical.
With this combination of stitching processes, every customer now feels spoken to on a personal level, and it’s all done with the same base brochure. The process of personalizing direct mail like this is proven to increase engagement and response rates. Companies, brands, and marketing professionals can now use the same basic marketing materials in a campaign that produces a wide number of different personalized brochures or booklets cutting down on design and content legwork as well as project time.
Stitcher MARK III
Quality and Efficiency
The new Stitcher MARK III is capable of delivering the highest quality professional-grade booklets with more efficiency than ever. In business, time is always of the essence. Stay ahead of schedule with United Mail. The new StitchLiner MARK III is capable of printing well over 5,000 booklets in a single hour. Professional quality production is achieved with all new subsystems for flawless sheet transport, jogging, scoring, folding, and positive jog register at the trimmer. The system also includes features such as stitch and fold monitoring to help ensure the highest quality of booklet production.
Built-in systems for automatic adjustments for thickness, length, and format, etc. maintain consistency and efficiency and, combined with flexible system configurations, help to meet the individual size and formatting needs of each project.
The Big Picture
To summarize, variable Data Printing is on the rise. Mail addressed to a recipient by name is much more effective than traditional direct mail which might address recipients as “neighbor” or “current resident.” Variable Data Printing takes advantage of the customer data and regional data that is at the disposal of modern companies, brands, and marketers to create a direct mail campaign that beats out the competition, generates more engagement, increases response rate, and increases ROI.
The new StitchLiner MARK III is an incredibly powerful machine that takes VDP to the next level. Variable print stitching allows for variable data to be used with incredible efficiency even in multi-page direct mail. No longer do brochure and booklet campaigns have to miss out on the power of variable data printing. Variable print stitching brings the option to efficiently utilize personalized images, text, phone numbers, information, and more in brochures, booklets, and other multi-page projects.
With the option for variable sheets, there’s an even further layer of personalization available for multi-page projects. Specific pages from the same base pool of materials can be attached to create an effective personalized experience for customers by presenting them with marketing materials relevant to them and their individual data profiles, regional information, or demographics.
The option for variable print stitching with cover personalization helps to ensure that each customer, region of customers, or demographic market feel spoken to on a more personal and relevant level. The StitchLiner MARK III gives companies, brands, and marketing professionals the power to deliver the same information to a wide array of customers with a variety of needs and expectations in a number of enticing and personalized packages.
Variable print stitching with variable sheets and matching covers combines the interchangeability of the two previous processes to create an even more diverse and targeted array of personalized information and media for multi-page projects.
The StitchLiner MARK III itself is a marvel of engineering and automation. Automatic processes reduce time and overhead and increase quality and consistency. The MARK III’s impressive output isn’t just high in volume, it is high in quality, with several systems devoted to making sure that projects are precise, professional, and consistent. The StitchLiner MARK III also has dedicated systems to make sure that the individual technical needs of each project can be met better than ever before.
Let’s Talk About What the StitchLiner MARK III Can Do for You
Give United Mail a call today to talk about the potential of The StitchLiner MARK III for your next project. We’re here to help and look forward to hearing from you. Request a call today.
By: Kenton G. Jetton
