Postage Hikes

Yesterday I received a 4 X 6 Postcard in the mail advertising pool opening, closing and maintainence. The opening line was "Dear Pool Owner,".

You may expect my next comment to be, "They should have used Variable Data to grab my attention", and maybe they should have. More importantly, this postcard showed a lack of up front job planning:

How my name was obtained for this mailing? I do not have a pool, and thus am not a qualified prospect. By doing list profiling along with the list purchase, this could have been discovered and the printing and postage costs would not have been spent.

This 4 X 6 postcard was mailed 1st class with $0.42 of postage. It could have been mailed at the same class for $0.27 each. $0.15 of postage adds up very quickly.

Yes, postage is going up again. This means that, more than ever, you need to make sure you are examining your upfront planning. Consider all your options and invest wisely in your marketing progams.

Soon I'm going to post some size ideas and related printing and postage savings.

Hey that pool looked nice, maybe I'll get one!
Jason

Print Green and Save Green (money!) - Distributed Print

The traditional model of printing is Print and Distribute: to print in one location and then send to the location of its intended use. You may be printing in Maryland for a conference in Seattle. Or, you may be printing many pieces, then distributing throughout the country. The Distributed Print method is simply the act of sending the electronic file rather to a location closer to its end use. This Distribute and Print method has the potential to save money, save time, and also can be more environmentally friendly.

How can you save with Distributed Print?

You can save money by eliminating the need to pay shipping costs. It costs nothing to send a digital file from one computer to another. If you are using electronic proofs, there is no cost difference between across the street and across the world. The savings realized by reducing or eliminating final shipping can be very significant.

You can save time by reducing shipping time. One of our clients recently had a conference in San Diego. They were relying on information from member volunteers to put together the final conference proceedings. The information finally came together on Tuesday, and the conference began on Saturday! The production schedule was so tight that the only way to get the materials to the conference would have been to Air Freight all of the materials overnight from Ohio to San Diego. We made the switch to Distributed Print and sent the electronic file to one of our facilities in San Diego. By using PDF electronic proofs and eliminating the day of shipping, we actually gained a day in production time AND saved the client thousands of dollars in shipping costs.

You can save the world. Ok, saving the world may be an exaggeration, but it does hold some truth. The act of sending the file to the location where it will print eliminates the necessity to ship it there. This eliminates the consumption of gas and oil required for shipping, and reduces greenhouse emissions emitted in shipping. Its something you can promote to your clients, or if you are an association, your members. You can now tout your sustainability initiatives and proactively voice your green initiatives at your meeting or on your web site.

Whether your needs are Domestic or International; we’ve got you covered:

Automated Graphic Systems is one of 70 Consolidated Graphics Companies (check out the map above). That means you have access to printing facilities in most places within the United States that you would consider having a meeting, and we share technology from plant to plant. All of this can be accessed from one point of contact also. You can feel confident sending your files to me and printing in Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago or any of our other locations. For a list of all locations, e-mail me.

We are also part of the International Printers Network. Together, we harness the power of Distributed Print in 189 cities around the world!

Reduce Costs #2 – Reduce Inventory

Have you ever examined the total of ownership of your documents? According to a study by CAP Ventures, for every $1 spent on document output, $9 is spent on other costs including: Procurement and Facility costs, end-user interaction time, IT and document management. According to the study, the highest costs are: $2.50 Document Production and $5 Document Management.

We all are conscious of the cost investment to create content, and also keep a close eye on the 10% spent to print the document. Are the materials being used promptly and efficiently? Do we consider obsolescence and inventory cost along with evaluating cost per unit when printing? Examining the amount of material that is eventually destroyed due to obsolesce, and combining the cost of storage, may significantly outweigh the lower cost per unit that was realized by printing in high quantities.

You may find that this cost of storage and obsolescence could make printing digitally – either short run, or on demand a better solution. This also may open up new doorways for Variable Data Printing.

Case study:

A large insurance company prints out large quantities of Provider Directories that cover several regions. Printing in large quantities allows them to reduce the cost per unit to a very low amount. These materials are held in a warehouse and fulfilled as new clients are acquired and policies are renewed.

Every now and then, some language makes it into the directories that require them to be reprinted, or places the company in a bad light due to an improper explanation of benefits. These huge, one-size-fits-all, directories contain much more information than the individual needs. They take up more space and are less relevant than they could be. They cost a lot of money in postage due to their heavy weight.

We created a front-end database system that creates custom provider directories and prints each On-Demand. Provider directories are now customized to the individual recipient. Policy information is relevant to that policyholder and is up-to-date. This has become a useful reference tailored to the individual recipient, rather than a large book containing information that was mostly irrelevant.

Further, a warehouse the size of a supermarket has been eliminated, inventory obsolescence does not exist, and cash flow is improved.

Do you have materials in a warehouse? Are you getting value for everything you produce? Focus not only on the $1 used to print the document, but also in the $9 to manage it.