Printing postcards for direct mail promotion

[JewelryDesignConcepts]

Wait since when is toner not water proof?

Dick Burn - do you want to be a jeweler or a printer? Because the time and resources it is going to take you to get this worked out won't be worth it. Find a new vendor. If you really do want to have a mid-life career change then you are going to need to purchase, learn, a CASS software, a variable data software, a printer, a cutter, and spend you day sorting, rubberbanding, traying, strapping and hauling postcards. There is so much to learn you don't even know what you don't know.

We're a marketing company not jeweler's, we have other projects that we would like to print small batches to explore different direct mail opportunities. We are prepared to get into the printing business... This is why I am in this forum! If this is not the correct forum please let me know?

 

[JustinB]

If you want to get into the printing business (even on a limited basis) then pick something bigger than the $4,000 little printers you're talking about.

If we already determined that (probably) $.25 of the cost is postage, and the card is around $0.15, how much money would you have to save to say: "this is worth while"?

If we assume that your printer is making a 20% profit on the $.15 after all the work they put in, then they're making $600 of profit if you send out 20,000 Postcards in a month. Is all the work worth saving $600?

Here's a real good discussion that happened around here in August. I think it's very applicable to you: http://printplanet.com/forums/digital-printing-discussion/31684-basement-digital-printing-services

 

[JewelryDesignConcepts]

Getting a bulk mail permit is easy. But the mailings themselves are more involved. When you buy the mailing list, you have to generate the intelligent mail barcode which is a combination of information you provide (the mailer) and information from the address list (zip code). Once the information is compiled, it has to be converted into a text string that can be printed as a barcode.

Depending on your mailing, you may or may not need to deliver the postcards in the same sequence that Bob the postal carrier will be walking on his route. So you can't just print a bunch of cards and address them, it all has to be in a certain order.

You need to provide paperwork to the post office showing that the list is up-to-date and doesn't have any bad/old addresses in it. You need to generate barcodes for the trays that the postcards will sit in while they go through the post office system. You also need to generate all the upfront paperwork for submitting your order.

$.40 INCLUDING them handling all the printing and dirty work (bulk mail process) is a good price for what you're getting. It's not super dirt cheap 0 profit margin, but it's not real high either.

It looks like this software will handle the barcode generation and sorting of the address savepostage.com

 

[MailGuru]

We are 1 mi away from our downtown PO, we have been assigned an account rep who does seem helpful. He mentioned that we should come down to see how a tray is organized and he can recommend the software needed.

Unless your "downtown post office" is a BMEU (Business Mail Entry Unit), you will not be able to enter your mail there.

The rules and regulations for bulk mailings is so complicated, that, it has taken many of us years to master. You might want to take a quick gander at the "DMM" (Domestic Mail Manual) you can find it at http://pe.usps.com. In this book you will find regulations relative to your mail piece design, (aspect ratio, background reflectance levels, minimum post card thickness, etc, as well as addressing regulations, and mail prepartion regulations. There are also regulations governing your mail list (CASS, NCOA, etc).

In addition to your printing and cutting equipment, you will need to invest in a postal sortation software product, (around $8,000/year with updates), an NCOA data service (we pay about $2,000/year for unlimited NCOA runs) as well as your creative software license (Adobe InDesign, Creative Suite, etc). Then, unless you want to wait hours when sending a job to your printer, you will need to invest in some variable-data merge software. You can get by relatively cheap there if you are not going to do anything big or complicated (FusionPro - around $1,000 plus support). We do a lot of large complicated variable image, variable data jobs so, our merge software is XMPie Svr version ($100,000 +) with an annual support contract of about $12,500/year.

If you're only paying $0.40/ech including postage, I'd say you are getting a pretty good deal. In my humble opinion, if you invested in everything you need to be a small print/mail shop, AND figured out all the rules and regulations (which, by the way, are changing constantly, so, you have to always be on the lookout for new regs and implement them by the deadline date, or your jobs will be rejected at the BMEU), at your volume, it would be years before you would hit a breakeven point on your investment.

Also, "postal account reps", really know very little about the mail business. They know what to do when a mail job hits their dock, but, in reality, none of them have ever actually "prepared" a mail job from a production point of view. Also, by law your postal rep can not "recommend a postal sortation software vendor". He can provide you a list of USPS Certified CASS and Postal Sort Vendors, but, he could lose his job if he actually recommends one over the other.

I really wish you all the luck,

-Best

MailGuru

 

[JewelryDesignConcepts]

Unless your "downtown post office" is a BMEU (Business Mail Entry Unit), you will not be able to enter your mail there.

The rules and regulations for bulk mailings is so complicated, that, it has taken many of us years to master. You might want to take a quick gander at the "DMM" (Domestic Mail Manual) you can find it at Postal Explorer. In this book you will find regulations relative to your mail piece design, (aspect ratio, background reflectance levels, minimum post card thickness, etc, as well as addressing regulations, and mail prepartion regulations. There are also regulations governing your mail list (CASS, NCOA, etc).

In addition to your printing and cutting equipment, you will need to invest in a postal sortation software product, (around $8,000/year with updates), an NCOA data service (we pay about $2,000/year for unlimited NCOA runs) as well as your creative software license (Adobe InDesign, Creative Suite, etc). Then, unless you want to wait hours when sending a job to your printer, you will need to invest in some variable-data merge software. You can get by relatively cheap there if you are not going to do anything big or complicated (FusionPro - around $1,000 plus support). We do a lot of large complicated variable image, variable data jobs so, our merge software is XMPie Svr version ($100,000 +) with an annual support contract of about $12,500/year.

If you're only paying $0.40/ech including postage, I'd say you are getting a pretty good deal. In my humble opinion, if you invested in everything you need to be a small print/mail shop, AND figured out all the rules and regulations (which, by the way, are changing constantly, so, you have to always be on the lookout for new regs and implement them by the deadline date, or your jobs will be rejected at the BMEU), at your volume, it would be years before you would hit a breakeven point on your investment.

Also, "postal account reps", really know very little about the mail business. They know what to do when a mail job hits their dock, but, in reality, none of them have ever actually "prepared" a mail job from a production point of view. Also, by law your postal rep can not "recommend a postal sortation software vendor". He can provide you a list of USPS Certified CASS and Postal Sort Vendors, but, he could lose his job if he actually recommends one over the other.

I really wish you all the luck,

-Best

MailGuru

On the surface this sounds scary and complex but I have called our district BMEU office and spoke to a supervisor and also to doubly check I called our local BMEU downtown office and verified that with printing the barcode using the usps software there is no sorting or complicated software. You upload the address information to the usps business account gateway and a barcode is formatted for each address which is then inserted as variable data into the print.

 

[MailGuru]

On the surface this sounds scary and complex but I have called our district BMEU office and spoke to a supervisor and also to doubly check I called our local BMEU downtown office and verified that with printing the barcode using the usps software there is no sorting or complicated software. You upload the address information to the usps business account gateway and a barcode is formatted for each address which is then inserted as variable data into the print.

See, that's what I mean about getting information from the USPS. It's usually wrong. What he is trying to say is that, effective January 26, 2014 all mailers must switch to "Full-Service". Many of us are "Basic Service". One of the requirements of full-service, is that your postal sort forms must be uploaded through the business customer gateway.

Even if they provided such a service, it still would not relieve you, the mailer, of following the mail preparation regulations. For instance, for a post card the size that you describe above, it will need to be placed in trays in a specific order. They will need to be bundled into specific sortation groups before placing in those trays, and then, the trays will have to be labeled with an intelligent Mail Barcoded label to a specific destination based on the current labeling lists (See "labeling lists" in the DMM link that I gave you earlier.

If your post card was larger, say, a 6 x 9, then your mail preparation would be different. You would not bundle into groups, but, rather place them in the trays in a specific order.

Also, you need to be savy about mail pricing categories. For instance, a post card the size that you mentioned above could actually be mailed at a Presorted First Class Post-Card rate cheaper than Presorted Standard Auto-Letter Rate. (about 1-penny cheaper).

If you are doing a "carrier route" sort, there are different requirements and print order sequencing based on whether you are doing "ECRWSS" (enhanced carrier route - walk sequence saturation), ECRLOT (enhanced carrier route - line of travel), etc.

Anyway, be careful when listening to a USPS postal rep explain things to you. It's not their fault, and, they do not intentionally give out mis-information. The problem is that they are not fully trained on new regulations by the USPS before they are implemented. They go through a 30-min workshop, and then send them out on their own. Normally, if you ask 5 different postal reps about a new reg or new procedure, you will get 5 different answers.

-Best

MailGuru

 

[onwsk8r]

A 242 is a fine production machine. Only downsides are registration, slowdown for thick stocks, and duplexing. I have customers who prefer prints from my 242 over my C900.
You won't be printing business cards on it because it can't register 14pt+ to save it's life, but it does fine on text weight stocks. I mean.. If you can do 80% of your printing in-house on a $3,000 machine, why buy a $215,000 machine to get that other 20%? Send it to 4over and be done. Or send it somewhere else if you need it to be right the first time

On the mail aspect: I have a nonprofit that wants to do a mailing with a nonprofit indicia. That means I need a nonprofit permit. This was the first thing I checked into this morning. It's 5:00 in an hour and fifteen minutes and all I can do thus far is call the guy back and tell him I have no idea.
Oh, and MailGuru, I think you forgot something - out of those five answers, none will be right.

 

[JewelryDesignConcepts]

Thanks so much for your posts MailGuru, your input is appreciated. I'm still on track to attempt this myself it looks like. The cost to subcontract is too much and the confidentiality I need with my projects also is prohibitive to sub out this work going forward. I would like to put the thread back on track about discussing the original questions from the 1st post. To summarize those questions and delete the ones that no longer pertain:

1.) There is a very nice Xerox 242 machine for sale on ebay with low counts. With our current postcard size we will be printing 9 cards on 12x18 paper which is around 2-3k clicks per month ( 20,000 postcards / 9 = 2,222 pages or clicks ) The cost benefit of buying this printer for $5500 seems justified, is there anything I'm missing? I have spoken to a local Xerox repair rep who has offered to setup the machine and provide fiery training for $300. This rep also has assured me that support for this machine will come in around $200 for 20k clicks.

2.) What would be the process to include the variable data, is this something that is accomplished with the external fiery impose software?

 

[MailGuru]

A 242 is a fine production machine. Only downsides are registration, slowdown for thick stocks, and duplexing. I have customers who prefer prints from my 242 over my C900.
You won't be printing business cards on it because it can't register 14pt+ to save it's life, but it does fine on text weight stocks. I mean.. If you can do 80% of your printing in-house on a $3,000 machine, why buy a $215,000 machine to get that other 20%? Send it to 4over and be done. Or send it somewhere else if you need it to be right the first time

On the mail aspect: I have a nonprofit that wants to do a mailing with a nonprofit indicia. That means I need a nonprofit permit. This was the first thing I checked into this morning. It's 5:00 in an hour and fifteen minutes and all I can do thus far is call the guy back and tell him I have no idea.
Oh, and MailGuru, I think you forgot something - out of those five answers, none will be right.

Now's where it really get's complicated. Your nonprofit can not simply pay the fee and receive a non-profit permit. They will need to fill out a bunch of forms, and apply, which may take quite some time. In the mean time, while their application is being reviewed, your local BMEU can issue you a non-profit "Ghost" number. with this number, you mail on your own permit, but change the indicia to read "Non-Profit Org" instead of "Presort Standard". Then, write the ghost number on your 3602-N.

Now, just because a non-profit has been authorized to mail at non-profit rates, does not mean that THIS particular piece will qualify for non-profit. You have to examine the content of the piece. The piece can not contain an advertisement for a for-profit entity. You can have a sponsorship logo (say, Hilton), but, the peice can not contain an offer for that sponsor (ex: special room rate during event at $59.99/night).

You are right, they would be 0 for 5. When new regs are introduced, most of my BMEU people will call me for clarification, as, I make a point of keeping up and understanding what new things are coming down the pike.

-Best

MailGuru

 

[onwsk8r]

1. Tell Xerox to train you for free if you get a maintenance contract. They love to give stuff away when you push them. Also, you can't just run a ton of black clicks through a 242.. You need to run color to avoid developer issues. They will tell you about this, however 2222 clicks shouldn't be "too much".

2. I'm looking for your post detailing what variable data you're running and I can't find it. You said they are 1/0 on yellow cardstock, right? In a simple world, if you can get a PDF with 20,000 pages, you can use Impose. Plan on waiting a WHILE for it to rip, though

 

[gcspec]

$7k is a Reasonable price for that machine. I see you are printing black ink, that is a color printer. Judging by the fact it's a 242, it will be at least 6 years old which means your price per click (the cost Xerox charges for a click) will be very high. I would estimate around $.02 per click. On a newer, faster black and white printer, your cost per click could be as low as 1/3 of a penny! It also may be nearing end of life which is NOT where you want to be. Overall, very reliable machines with good quality - slow though. Most monochrome printers are going to be in the 90 - 150 ppm range easily. (that's a lot faster than 40 ppm!)

The smearing is our friends at the USPS - you can coat to prevent this, but still occurs. If it's bad, look at different stocks.

I print lots of postcards - have for years and they always have variable data. It's more efficient to print everything at once. They will come out sorted and ready to mail once you cut them down to size. (14mm X 9.5mm sounds VERY small if my understanding of the metric system is correct. Could those be CM and not MM maybe?)

Feel free to contact me with questions.

 

[JewelryDesignConcepts]

$7k is a Reasonable price for that machine. I see you are printing black ink, that is a color printer. Judging by the fact it's a 242, it will be at least 6 years old which means your price per click (the cost Xerox charges for a click) will be very high. I would estimate around $.02 per click. On a newer, faster black and white printer, your cost per click could be as low as 1/3 of a penny! It also may be nearing end of life which is NOT where you want to be. Overall, very reliable machines with good quality - slow though. Most monochrome printers are going to be in the 90 - 150 ppm range easily. (that's a lot faster than 40 ppm!)

The smearing is our friends at the USPS - you can coat to prevent this, but still occurs. If it's bad, look at different stocks.

I print lots of postcards - have for years and they always have variable data. It's more efficient to print everything at once. They will come out sorted and ready to mail once you cut them down to size. (14mm X 9.5mm sounds VERY small if my understanding of the metric system is correct. Could those be CM and not MM maybe?)

Feel free to contact me with questions.

My apologies, i'm learning from my mistakes though...our current postcard size is 14cm x 9.5cm
The print speed is not really a big issue for us, we have the time to baby the printer and take our time learning the software, we usually format the variable data a week ahead and send to the printer 5k records at a time to be printed and mailed out each Monday. ( usually a couple weeks out between the time the 5k list is received by the printer and the drop is made, so we keep ourself many weeks ahead with drops )
The paper the printer uses looks and feels very similar, almost exact to the bulk cardstock paper we buy from staples: 65lb cardstock paper

 

[JewelryDesignConcepts]

1. Tell Xerox to train you for free if you get a maintenance contract. They love to give stuff away when you push them. Also, you can't just run a ton of black clicks through a 242.. You need to run color to avoid developer issues. They will tell you about this, however 2222 clicks shouldn't be "too much".

2. I'm looking for your post detailing what variable data you're running and I can't find it. You said they are 1/0 on yellow cardstock, right? In a simple world, if you can get a PDF with 20,000 pages, you can use Impose. Plan on waiting a WHILE for it to rip, though

The variable data contains the address along with a unique number assigned to each address and the postal barcode. The address's are nationwide, we're mailing out based on a targeted lead list and not by geographic area.
Printed on yellow cardstock, black text, double sided.
Can you explain a little more regarding developer issues? If we plan to print 2500 clicks per week B/W how many more pages should we click in full color...ie full color pictures etc...

 

[kdw75]

The variable data contains the address along with a unique number assigned to each address and the postal barcode. The address's are nationwide, we're mailing out based on a targeted lead list and not by geographic area.
Printed on yellow cardstock, black text, double sided.
Can you explain a little more regarding developer issues? If we plan to print 2500 clicks per week B/W how many more pages should we click in full color...ie full color pictures etc...

While I am not familiar with that particular machine and it's developer issues, I will say that we have found that on the lower end machines you can expect to have developers replaced several times a month if you run heavy coverage jobs. We had Xerox in here 3 times in one month for clumps in the developer of our Xerox 7556. If you must have a color machine I would look at something like the Xerox 550 or above.

 

[dpolglaze]

This is one of those "Please stop the insanity" threads!
For you "Jewelry" you're going to do this no matter what it seems even though most of us have tried to scare the beejeezus out of you. I've been in the mailing and printing business in pretty much every role from sales to programming to production for 25 years. I know work as technical sales engineer for a premier national dealer who supplies a full range of software and equipment to the mailing and printing industry. I am in and out of small and large mailers and printers everyday and I see what makes them fail and what makes them successful...some of them end up in jail when they fail.

Pay attention to MailGuru and also be prepared for a huge uphill battle and the very high possibility that a year or so into this you WILL find yourself back in whatever core marketing segment you're in now with about $25,000 less than when you started. Also, make sure you can loose at least that amount of money and that you're company can survive the loss of the client you're doing this for. If you muck up just one mailing....that's usually all it takes.

One thing I really want to say is this: the whole idea of how you're going to start this challenge with buying things off eBay and winging it is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. It's just simply wrong and anyone who supports this plan (like these postal people) should be shot. It's one thing to be determined and confident and smart....take away the smart and the rest is worthless.

Here's your process with the best hope of success if you want to add direct mail marketing production to your existing business:

1) Buy a decent newer machine from a reputable dealer (not the manufacturer) that prints up to 110# cover on 13x19 and make sure you have a service contract for at least two years and get yourself trained on maintaining and repairing the machine during the two years. (Assume that any digital press will break down once/week).

2) Make sure the RIP can handle variable data...Fiery or Creo...and you don't need all the Fiery bells and whistles options, so Creo is best because everything you need is built in.

2) Buy PrintShop Mail to do the VDP layout for about $5,000. (Or buy a good VDP plugin for InDesign called DesignMerge for a little more). PSM comes with excellent tutorials but no training. DM comes with online training done by a human. Note that PSM will give you much faster spooling and RIP times than a ID plugin.

3) Buy BCC MailManager ($6000?) for all the postal sorting and postal prep work of your data and GET AS MUCH TRAINING ON THAT PART AS YOU CAN! Test, test, test and proof, proof, proof your data and final work until you are certain and without question that it was done right. Something will be wrong the first 20 times you do this. Assume that and you'll be safe and hopefully the worst that will happen is the post office will simply reject your mailing and you'll end up taking your trays to a pre-sort house and paying them to run your cards through their system to correct the mistake.

4) Sounds like with your programming background you can probably get away with using Excel as your data software, although there's still a lot of danger with using it for this type of work, especially since you have indicated security and confidentiality as concerns. This is the part you need to be VERY AFRAID OF and hopefully that will keep you from loosing this client and going out of business because not only did they toss you as a vendor, they also brought a law suit against you and your company for the snafu that happened in the first place.

Again, it looks like you're going through with this. I wish you luck and please be smart about this. We can all tell by the questions you ask that you don't fully understand what you're getting into.
Follow our advice, be very afraid at all times and you may just succeed at adding this to your business.

 

[Craig]

Just to add 2 cents... Accuzip is much less expensive and can do a lot more for the money than BCC. Fusion Pro, again is much less expensive and has a ton of tools included.

But I agree, if you go cheap on the equipment, you might as well save your money.

 

[MailGuru]

In order to a postal presort (even if it is online with the USPS - which I have not been able to verify the acurracy of that statement yet), you will need to be able to tell them the following:

1) Class of Mail - determines sort, barcode makeup, tray tags
2) Length & Height of the mail pieces - determines letter or flat category, auto/no-auto eligibility, tray type (MM or EMM).
3) The thickness of your mail pieces - determines the number of peices that will fit in a tray as well as tray assignment - barcoded mailings work in "full-trays or 3/4 full trays" for tray destination assignment and sort level pricing.
4) Weight of the mail piece - determines postage if standard & over 3.3 oz or First class and over 2-ounces as well as quantity verification at the BMEU.

But, here is the MOST IMPORTANT reason you will need to purchase presort software: In your particular case, you will need the ability to "North/South" split your mail file on output before you go to print.

From the size and dimensions of your postcard, you say you want to print 9-up on a 13 x 19 sheet. Unless you want to hand-merge those 5 to 10 thousand cards into the correct postal sequence after printing and cutting, you will need to order your file (which, will then rearrange it out of postal sort sequence) so that, when you cut, each stack will come out in order.

For instance, assume a 900 piece mailing (100 sheets at 9-up - 3 rows of 3 cards/row) if you hold your 9-up sheet in landscape mode, the top left card should start with seq #1, the same location of the 2nd sheet should be card #2, the same location of the 3rd sheet should be card #3 and so on. So, looking at the top sheet, the upper-left card should start with "1", and, that stack will go from 1 to 100. The card to it's right should start with "101", and that stack will go from 101-200. The upper right should start with "201", and that stack should go from 201 - 300, etc.

Your imposition sofwtare will allow you to set you art up in that manner, but, it will NOT rearrange your mailing record sequencing. Neither, would a sort coming from the USPS's online gateway (if there is one).

However, virtually all postal sort packages allow you to specify on output how many will be "up" on your sheet and re-sequence your print output file to match. This is called "North/South" splitting your file.

-Best

MailGuru

 

[JewelryDesignConcepts]

Thanks for your input, we have someone who will train us on all aspects of the processing/printing/mailing over the next month or so.
I will make sure I post a detailed explanation of how this goes over the coming weeks.

 

[MailGuru]

That's good, JDC. At least you won't be winging it alone. Please let us know how it turns out, and, if there is anything I can do to help, just let me know, I'll be glad to - I'm right over here in Orlando.

-Best

MailGuru