What is Variable Printing?

What’s the hottest word in digital printing today? Variable. As in, variable printing, or variable digital printing. Variable printing has more aliases than most professional gangsters, but it all boils down to the same basic concept: Customized products designed to maximize the appeal of your company.

Defining Variable Printing

“A form of on-demand printing in which elements such as text, graphics and images may be changed from one printed piece to the next without stopping or slowing down the printing process and using information from a database or external file.” (Wikipedia Definition of Variable Data Printing)

What’s in your mail? The credit card offers you get in the mail every day are a great example of variable printing. Why? Because nine times out of ten you’re going to see your name at the top.

Now, when you see a letter pop up in the mail with “Dear Friend” at the top, how long do you wait before you throw it away? One sentence? Two? Or do you shoot on sight? Tune in next time for the why’s and the how’s. For now, let’s just say variable printing acts as a rocket booster for your marketing campaign.

Types of Variable Printing

There are four different types of variable printing orders professional print shops tend to see come across their desks:

1)      Full variable printing, when every part of the page can be customized to your clientele.

2)      Selectable variable printing, where certain parts of the page remain static and unchangeable and others can be adapted to your purposes. You often see this in form letters, allowing certain parts of the form to be filled with information particular to your client.

3)      Personalization, when the product is static (for example, a direct mail marketing postcard) but can be personalized with your customer’s name or the name of your organization.

4)      On-Demand short run printing, when pre-defined prints are created in short runs. Commonly used for presentations, folders, binders, etc. with an organization’s insignia.

Variable printing bridges the gap between you and your customers and eliminates the anonymity and “cookie cutter” personality of most mass marketing materials. What can variable printing do for your business?