Preparing for Successful VDP
If you are working with direct mail marketing, e-mail marketing (with or without PURLs), mobile media marketing, transpromo or collateral fulfillment and you are trying to personalize the material to improve the response, then you know it is not easy to pull it all together.
The two most difficult parts of working with variable data (regardless of the delivery medium) are working with data to make sure it is accurate and relevant, and then integrating the data into the design of the piece in a meaningful, measurable format. Realistically, one is not more important than the other, because if either one is not properly implemented, the project is likely to fail. So let's start with data.
John Leininger is a professor in the Department of Graphic Communications at Clemson University. He has been at Clemson since 1986. He has taught courses in flexography, lithography, digital printing, inks and substrates, as well as the department’s management class dealing with estimating, planning, equipment purchasing, cost analysis and plant layout. Currently, he is focused on the digital printing and variable data market. Contact him at:ljohn@clemson.edu