Variable Data (Part 1) Aim Small, Miss Small

Variable Data Printing has become a buzz word. But how do you sell it to customers? What does it take to provide VDP? And how can your department profit from it?

By Vic Nathan Barkin

When taking aim with a rifle, the smaller the target you aim for, the more likely you are to hit that target. The very same concept can be applied to personalized variable data printing. The VDP process is much more than just printing with new technology, though; it's a fundamental change in how printing is perceived, utilized and produced.

A musket in the time of the American Revolution was a military smoothbore that fired a single ball. In quantity, such as a regimental line volley (where hundreds of soldiers fired at once and reloaded quickly), it could be effective, but not accurate.

As we look at static printing today, as used in direct marketing, we see many similarities to the musket volley. A lot of "lead" is thrown downrange, but it's more luck than skill when a desired target is hit.

The rifle however, especially the American long-rifle of the Revolutionary War, was the most accurate firearm available at that time and place. Because of it's rifling, which stabilized the ball, and it's long barrel that gave it an unparalleled sight picture, the American long-rifle was the ideal personalized targeting tool.

Looking at VDP today and using this technology to maximize the accuracy of your institution's target marketing potential, the chance for success can increase exponentially.

Essentials Of The VDP Rifle

The old saying "Lock, stock and barrel" has come to mean that everything is complete. In equating this to VDP, all elements must be in place in order for everything to "click" or work together properly.

• The Lock: your customer's data. (The lock is also the key)

• The Stock: return on investment

• The Barrel: the output device

Taking this analogy further, we'll add the following components necessary to load and fire the VDP rifle:

• The Priming Powder: VDP Software

• The Gunpowder: the RIP or print controller

• The Bullet: personalized message

• The Trigger: your customer's marketing strategy

• The Ramrod: you

With this analogy taken into account let's take a look at a few more of them.

• Going off half-cocked: If your customer's data isn't accurate, although the load in your barrel performs as expected, the results can be disastrous. The target could be missed completely, or worse yet, you could hit the wrong target entirely.

• Shooting in the dark: Pulling the trigger (i.e. your customer's marketing strategy) without being able to clearly see the target won't achieve the desired results.

Why Should You Offer VDP?

Let's look at the variety of reasons to allocate resources to VDP technology. We can split this up into three general categories: threats, challenges and opportunities.

Redcoats (threats): All in-plants face the possibility of being outsourced. One way to protect yourself is to provide services that utilize more complex technologies.

• Facilities management companies and commercial printers who may be knocking on your administration's door are unlikely to provide services that fall into this category. Offering "vital services" such as VDP could help fend off their attacks.

• Service bureaus and mailing houses are two industry areas that are delving into the VDP arena. They typically possess the technical savvy to take on VDP endeavors. The decline in film output for service bureaus especially, is forcing them into new business segments. These two industries more than any other pose a "if we don't, they will" threat to in-plants.

• Photo processing houses are expected to soon offer digital printing services, including variable data, as part of their offerings now that the transition from analog to digital is nearly complete.

• Digital asset management firms and digital print providers are the new breed of competition. Their Web-based business models can have a profound effect on your bottom line if you don't offer similar services with better value.

Tories (challenges): During the American Revolution, a Tory was your neighbor or your brother. Someone you once relied upon, but whose loyalties now lie with the other side.

We've all seen emerging technologies replace output methods once relied upon for bread-and-butter revenue. Business forms have been replaced by Web forms. E-mail is preferred over stationery. Even short- and medium run full-color jobs are migrating to desktop color printers.

Sons of Liberty (opportunities): Like the Sons of Liberty, the Minutemen and the Continental Army of the Revolution, we need to stand up and make change happen. The possibilities can be looked at in three main categories. Each one has unlimited potential for the migration to VDP.

First is promotional literature. This can include marketing and recruitment information, brochures, catalogs, fund-raising promotions, event and conference materials, media packs, itinerary information, convention packets and alumni communications.

Published documents, especially those that are revision or version-intensive are prime candidates for POD and/or VDP. These can include course packs, class notes and exams, presentations and proposals, fact sheets, training manuals, software and hardware manuals, newsletters, meeting handouts and short-run books and magazines.

Finally there are transactional documents: billing and tax statements, insurance policy holder booklets, benefit information packets, grade reports, scholarship awards, confirmation and welcome materials and membership information bulletins.

The Lock Is The Key

Data is the most important component in variable data printing. Without good data, producing personalized VDP is of little value. It's how and where the data is collected, refined and used that marketers need to understand.

In discussing this aspect with our College of Business marketer recently, I found she was reluctant to really dive into personalization for just that reason. She didn't trust the databases that had been built by her department and therefore felt that, potentially, more harm than good could come out of using the existing data.

It was about time for this department to send out the Dean's Quarterly newsletter, an eight-page 4/4 piece. I suggested that we could use the data currently used to add a "wrap" with the mailing address and bar code on the outside and the customer's personal information contained in our database on the inside of the back cover. A questionnaire to confirm they had the correct information, not just address correction but data correction, could be mailed back postage paid to the department.

This is an example of how once the updated information is collected, the department can trust its databases to be accurate and therefore have the integrity to be used in personalized campaigns.

Purchasing lists can be a basic starting point for whittling down real prospects. Lists are useful only in generic or possibly versioned mailings, though. They should not be used for personalization due to the fact that the data collection methods may be dubious at best. Using contact lists is a starting point, however, for gathering information pertinent to future VDP campaigns.

Survey cards and hardcopy forms are simple ways to collect more accurate data, however the data still needs to be input by a third party; errors are likely to occur. The same can be said for personal or phone interviews. The only sure way to get data right from the horse's mouth is by using Web forms crafted to answer specific questions by using either multiple choice or drop-down menu answers.

This brings us to the concept that there is only one way to plan a VDP marketing campaign. In order to know which questions to ask on surveys or questionnaires you have to know what the answers will be used for. More importantly this means your marketers need to understand the capabilities of any technology available to them in order to build a strategy around it.

Selling VDP

In order to sell VDP you must first understand the Aim Small- Miss Small concept, be ready and able to explain it to your customers, and have a complete understanding of the various components that go into loading and firing the VDP rifle, both those that fall into their area of expertise and yours.

Because you have a distinct advantage as an in-plant, your customers are more likely to share information that will benefit both parties. You need to convince them your goal is to see them succeed. Get familiar with your customers' needs, wants, hopes and dreams. Educating your customers on what is possible is the best way to gain their support. Your customers are your generals; convince them you can be their sharpshooters and can hit their mark. Once they realize you are on their side, you will have an easier time justifying the tools needed to fulfill their dreams.

Content Levels

Here are the various content levels printed documents could contain:

Static: This is a "one size fits all" marketing message. Every customer receives the same message.

Personalized: Each customer's salutatory name appears on each document along with their address, but the marketing message is static.

Versioned: Segmented versions of a document are created to meet the needs of different groups.

Fully Customized: Here is the "Holy Grail" of direct marketing. Each document's content is customized to be highly relevant and custom-tailored to a specific individual. Everything in the document can be varied.

Full color customization is desirable because, to put it simply, color sells. The only way to accomplish full-color VDP is through something other than page-level variability. To do this something beyond mail- merge had to be invented.

With non-variable data the code for each page needs only to be RIPed once, then as many copies as required can be printed. However with variable data, the code for each and every text and graphic element on each and every page must be RIPed each time a customized version of that page is printed. Forms drivers can help by downloading static images and text to the RIP, then just the variable portions can be sent, but this is limited only to text. All images must remain static.

Let's say that you decide to customize a brochure. You might decide to tailor the images on a brochure to the preferences of the recipient. When it's time to print, your computer will need to download the code for all pages of text and graphics to your RIP instead of downloading the code for just one page. The RIP will need to rasterize each page of code instead of rasterizing one page of code. Why? Because a page is the smallest printed element a RIP deals with.

Print Optimization

Various hardware and software vendors developed proprietary technologies to address the problem and thus make VDP jobs print faster. These technologies are called "print-optimization technologies."

In time, these vendors formed PODi, the Print On Demand Initiative. Member organizations came to understand that because of the proprietary nature of print-optimization technologies the market potential of digital-printing technology had not been realized. The digital printing market could not be exploited because of a lack of a standardized methodology.

To address this problem PODi member organizations voted in 1999 to develop a new print language for personalized printing. PPML is the language that came out of this development effort.

Powerful PPML

The following is PODi's official definition: "PPML (Personalized Print Markup Language) is based on the Web-friendly XML (eXtensible Markup Language) structure and is designed to enable the widespread use of personalized print applications by providing a common means to handle reusable objects and promote flexibility at the object level."

PPML is an open standard that makes variable-data jobs print faster by allowing a printer to store text and graphic elements and reuse them as needed. This eliminates the need to send the same code to the RIP multiple times during the same print job.

PPML accomplishes this in two ways.

• Object-level granularity: This gives printers (output devices) the ability to understand and manipulate the objects that make up a page by storing the variations of those objects on the print controller.

• Reusable object coding: This allows application developers to write standardized code that attaches names to objects that the print controller can interpret and understand.

In a PPML workflow, there is a PPML Producer and a PPML Consumer. A PPML Producer is anything that produces PPML code. Typically, a PPML Producer is an application or a driver. A PPML Consumer is a device, process, or system that reads and interprets PPML code. Typically, a PPML Consumer is a printer, RIP or Digital Front End (DFE).

Here is a list of PPML producers. It is by no means complete, as new technologies are being introduced constantly:

• Banta DesignMerge for QuarkXpress

• Atlas Software BV PrintShop Mail

• Datalogics DL Formatter SW suite

• ExStream Dialogue Suite

• PrintSoft NewLeaf & PReS/PPML

• Solimar Systems, TUKANDA

• Pageflex Mpower, .EDIT and Persona

• Techno, Design Personalizer-X

• XMPie, PersonalEffect SW Suite

On the PPML consumer side, some products are proprietary while others offer a more open architecture:

• Creo Spire Servers, Xerox print engines

• Heidelberg NexStation DFE and NexPress (soon to be an Eastman Kodak product)

• Xeikon Swift DFE, Xeikon 5000

• EFI Fiery Freeform 2 color servers, Canon, Xerox, Ricoh, NexPress, Océ

• HP-Indigo SNAP/RIP, HP-Indigo digital presses

All PPML Producer implementations are not identical, nor are all PPML Consumer implementations. To minimize compatibility problems when creating a PPML-based workflow, choose system components that were designed to work together. Several software and hardware vendors have formed PPML-related alliances. EFI RIPs support Atlas, Datalogics, Pageflex, Exstream and others on the front end, and Canon, Epson, Heidelberg/Kodak, Indigo, Konica, Lanier, Minolta, Océ, Ricoh, Sharp and Xerox on the output end, just to name a few.

Some other existing front-to-back-end partnerships are:

• Pageflex M-Power and Persona, Creo and Xerox

• Atlas Printshop Mail, think121 and Datalogics DL-100, NexStation DFE and NexPress

• Datalogics DL-100 Software, EFI Fiery/Colorpass RIPs and Canon

In 2002, PODi and Adobe partnered to create PPML/VDX (Personalized Print Markup Language/Variable Data eXchange). It was built upon PODi's PPML and Adobe's PDF format. It uses PDF files as containers to package the information needed to produce VDP jobs. A PPML/VDX-compliant producer will create a VDX file that includes all the necessary data, text and graphics to seamlessly integrate with a compliant PPML/VDX consumer system. This not only allows designers to submit formatted, variable data documents electronically, but also allows for the creation of VDP jobs without a specific production system in mind.

Content producers are free to maintain a typical relationship with print service providers regardless of whether they or the in-plant create the VDX document. Just as you can accept a PDF document today regardless of what created it, tomorrow you will be able to accept a VDX document regardless of which platform or PPML/VDX application created it. The big difference is VDP will no longer be a proprietary process.