Interview your VDP Provider

You don’t hire a new employee without a thorough interview and a background check do you? So why give something as important as your database to your Variable Data Printer without first making sure they are qualified. No bigger disaster than a Variable Data Campaign that is mishandled. Imagine if the names are not merged with the correct addresses? What if account numbers are not matched with the correct owner? Good intentions can go very wrong if you are not using a well-qualified provider. The interview process is pretty simple and I think there are some key questions that can quickly see through a weak or inexperienced provider.

I suggest beginning with some basics, feel them out and get your printer talking. A friend once asked me, “how do you know when a teenager is lying” and I did not know the answer. His response, “when their lips are moving.” Printers have grown up a little past the teenage stage, but can quickly be exposed. The basics are simple just to make sure they have been around for a while and are sizable enough to handle your campaign. Ask when they started in business, how many employees do they have, references of top clients. These are the easy ones, next start to target their variable expertise. What campaigns have they handled, how large, do they track response rates? You want a comfort that they know how to do more than a simple mail merge. An experienced provider will ask you questions about your audience and want the campaign to be a success. If they have no idea about how well past client campaigns have went, then they don’t care enough about the process. They should have a vested interest in making sure your campaign is successful. Everyone has experienced poor response from campaigns and there are many steps to take to try and avoid low response rates. I like it when a printer critiques my design and is not afraid to suggest changes.

These first few questions are only to establish a rapport and lead into the final and in my opinion most important question. Do they use variable data printing in their own marketing? How do they use it? What are their response rates? If they are selling you on how successful variable data printing is, they better eat, sleep and breathe it with their own marketing. I would suggest avoiding any printer that tells you how great VDP is and sends out generic postcards or does little marketing at all. The best way to gain expertise is to use the tools to market yourself.