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Often, when creatives and print shops think of variable data printing (VDP), they think of programs produced for customers. However, VDP can help you generate business, as well as give you real case studies you can use in your marketing efforts.
What I particularly like about this case study, and why I chose it, is that it had a high level of long-term success stemming from the campaign; and it was printed on a Konica Minolta 8050, not a traditional digital press. This case study is about the message, not the technology.
When Spectrum Creative Solutions and Services, a design, digital print, and direct-mail shop in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., wanted to launch into the variable-data business, it identified its nonprofit customers as a key market segment able to benefit from—but underutilizing—the approach. Spectrum's goal was to get them to attend an educational seminar on the uses of variable-data marketing.
Spectrum had been working with nonprofits for years, so it had a strong database to start with. It supplemented its list from the Chamber of Commerce to ensure that it contacted all of the non-profits within a 25-mile radius. After data cleansing and postal verification, Spectrum ended up with 150 names.
Because Spectrum had only names and addresses, it worked to incorporate that information into the design. In its geographic area, there was a high likelihood that these non-profits had not seen print personalization before, so even the creative use of a name would have been an attention-grabber, especially since the seminar was within an hour's drive of all the names in the database. They used three mailings to promote the seminar:
- First, a colorful and personalized "Save the Date" brochure was sent out, with the recipient's name and non-profit agency integrated into the copy on the front.
- One month later, it followed up with a full-color registration package with personalized invitation card and registration form.
- A week before the seminar, Spectrum sent out a full-color, personalized reminder card.
Of the 150 agencies that were sent invitations, 48 responded—a 32-percent response rate. In a follow-up questionnaire, Spectrum found that three-quarters of its attendees came because they had received the mailer with their name on it.
Following the seminar, Spectrum received $16,300 in work directly attributable to the seminar. More importantly, the seminar opened doors with an entirely new client base and gave the company credibility in the local community as a provider of one-to-one print solutions.
Although Spectrum has not continued to track the revenues generated from the seminar, it now has several clients doing VDP programs on a regular basis. Volumes of VDP jobs are also sufficient that Spectrum is in negotiations with Xerox to purchase an iGen3 for higher volumes.
As its clients' sophistication grows, Spectrum is working with them to build databases as clients learn more about their customers, and to help them make smarter utilization of the data they do have, such as understanding who to target, what to do with the information learned from previous campaigns, and how to continue to build relationships with those customers over time.
The company even has personalized URLs in its telephone hold message these days, promoting personalized URL technology to help them pinpoint prospects and collect data for more leads. Spectrum is a company that is now clearly focused on one-to-one print, with a growing business and expanding client base.
Heidi Tolliver-Nigro is an industry writer, an analyst specializing in digital workflow and technologies. Her e-mail address is htollvr@aol.com.
author: By Heidi Tolliver Nigro