Unwrapping opportunities

Of all the suppliers we use, the mailing house is probably the one we take most for granted. Indeed, often the choice of mailing house isn’t even a conscious one on the part of the publisher, since wrapping and mailing can simply be a service offered and then contracted out by our printer. The chances are that most of us have not visited our mailing house and wouldn’t recognise a SITMA if one was parked in our driveway.

My own understanding of the inner workings of the mailing house was fairly deficient, up until six weeks ago when I met up with Terry Turner of Priority Newstrade and Mailing in Salisbury. The overriding impression I came away with was how useful a periodic visit to your mailing house could be in opening your eyes to a range of marketing and cost saving opportunities.

For those of you for whom separation from your desk requires some kind of surgical procedure, let me enlighten you with what I picked up during the day. Terry Turner highlighted three services that are increasingly being used by publishers.

1. Selective inserting functionality (SIF)

Picture the scenario: you’ve sold four inserts. One is a full run insert, so no problems there. However the other three are to everyone in the south west, finance directors only and those who holidayed in the Seychelles last year respectively. In the good old days this would have meant eight different sets of labels (or data files). This is no longer necessary – yippee! SIF allows publishers to produce a single mailing file with the inserts being selectively inserted only into relevant copies during the wrapping run. As long as the publisher can include additional columns containing the relevant codes to indicate which split each record falls into, then SIF can do the rest. The polywrapping and inserting process is done as a single run with feeders inserting the relevant insert whenever the appropriate data trigger is activated. Mailing files are thus easier to produce (lower fulfilment costs), the turnaround time is reduced and presstream discounts are maximised.

2. Variable data

Variable data has been talked about for a few years now, yet the suspicion persists that "talk" is the operative word. The concept of variable data enables you to tailor your output, be it the editorial content of your publication or mailshot, or the mailing details for your carrier sheets. Because we’re talking about mailing houses we’ll concentrate on carriers and polywrap. Most publishers are familiar with putting marketing messages on carrier sheets. At its simplest level this usually involves splitting the mailing run into two and assigning everyone in the first batch carrier A and everyone in the second batch carrier B with the message being pre-printed on the carrier. What variable data allows you to do is to add an extra field in your mailing file and to put a message into that field. Theoretically you can then create a different message for every single record on the mailing file. The process simply lasers the message onto the predetermined slot on either the carrier or polywrap. Gone too are the days when everything had to be in courier 12 point. Now there are a range of fonts and font sizes. Furthermore we’re not just talking about text – graphics can be variable too.

3. Digital printing

Digital printing brings together two of the key benefits mentioned above: single runs and tailored data. Turner sees digital printing as offering particular benefits to multiple title publishers. There are two different scenarios that illustrate this point. Take a promotional brochure. Traditionally a publisher has two choices – print one brochure for each of their titles, or print one large brochure containing details of all their titles. Either way, compared to digital, these are unwieldy and costly options likely to result in lots of waste or bulky untargeted brochures. With the digital option a single brochure template can be created with five areas of variable data: salutation and mailing address, magazine cover image, promotional write up, vouchers or special offer, remittance. Now create a questionnaire (perhaps on the web) which asks the person which magazine they are interested in. Depending on the response the perfect tailored brochure is printed – the ultimate print run of one. An equally dramatic illustration of the benefits of digital is renewal notices. Traditionally, for multiple title publishers, this means lots of different stocks of letterhead for each title and numerous inefficient small runs. But if you create a digital template and set up the letterhead, letter text, remittance and images as variable data, all of your renewals can then be run as a single mailing run, thereby saving on stationery costs and creating substantial postage savings through the benefit of maximised mailsort discounts.

New technologies and the resulting new services being offered by mailing houses mean new opportunities for publishers to save costs and enhance their marketing activities. You have two options: you can start a meaningful dialogue with your mailing house and start to take advantage now, or you can wait and hope that you pick up some reflected benefit somewhere down the line. Talking of publishers being left behind, has anyone seen my pile of cheshires?