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Piece Together a Direct Mail Campaign

Step 3: Print the Mailer

Many factors influence how direct mail is printed, but the most important is quantity. The number of estimated mailers determines not only the type of equipment used to print the mailers but ultimately the cost. “If the mail piece is a personalized letter, unless it’s a small quantity, then printing as a continuous form is almost always a good choice,” says Dan Reid, marketing manager at Thorn Hill Printing, Freedom, Pa. Still, each case is different and the quickest way to get the most out of printing is to be clear about the distributor’s intentions. Postcards are almost always cut sheets, for instance. “The worst thing a printer can do is take a job specification from a distributor and quote that job without knowing exactly what the job involves,” says Reid.

How the mailers are printed—as a continuous form or cut sheets—affects the process downstream, when mail shops laser the finished products with personalized salutations and addresses. Mail shops use different equipment depending on how they receive the mailers. “We tell distributors that selling direct mail is easy once the printer understands the print requirements for the job and the mail-shop knows the number of pieces to be mailed and what personalization and mailing services may be required,” says Reid. “The mail shop is interested in knowing how they’re going to be lasered and the number of inserts.”

Mail house typically charge by the inch for lasering, so it pays to fit letters on the same roll. “Let’s say it’s a personalized letter. If printed as a double-wide continuous form, it can then be personalized two up which can cut your laser costs in half,” says Reid. “We had a job requiring four different brochures with the only change job to job being a code number. Understanding the customers print and mail requirements on this job eliminated multiple set-ups for printing and afforded significant cost savings on mailing services.”

Quantity also eats into margins when there are under and overruns. “One of the biggest problems distributors may face is incorrect information on the mail list count. They’ve been told by their customer that it’s a 50,000 piece mailing, and the printer and mail-shop have priced the job based on that count,” says Reid. “The best way to avoid a second print run and the additional print costs is to have the mail shop review and certify the mail count prior to printing.”

Ray Briggs, president of BZ mailing, a mail house in Daytona Beach, Fla., says communication between the mail house, printer and customer is the key to efficiency. “Talk to the mail house to find out how many overs you need,” says Briggs. “If you call a mail house and say ‘I have 25,000 pieces I want to get in the mail, so how many overs do you need,’ we usually predict you need a three percent overrun.” Those figures, he stresses, pertain to his mail house. Other mail houses may require more or less.

Next to quantity, the mail date has the most impact on the printing. Customers set firm mail dates but don’t always understand the steps involved in the printing process, including the importance of timely proof approval. When printers give a job completion date, it’s with the understanding that customers won’t sit on proofs. If they delay or there are changes to the file, the printing process is delayed. “If the printer has a good file with a good color print, we’re ahead of the game, and we won’t lose a day or two here,” says Reid.

Another potential delay can take place at the mail shop, where the mailers will sit until the postage is paid. “Distributors should be aware that they need to provide postage up front. In most cases if you don’t have a check for postage the mail-shop will not move forward with the job,” says Reid. “Distributors should protect themselves by getting paid up front by their customers for the expected postage costs. I know of several instances where distributors got into real trouble because they went ahead with the project without a postage check from their customers, the job went wrong and they were out that money.”

—Andy Brown