Variable Data Printing Get Started!

Personalized marketing materials can strengthen your organization's customer base. Here are the steps your in-plant can take to make it happen.

by Danny Kita

Organizations have taken great pains to collect information about their customers. But beyond an on-screen customer relationship management review prior to making a call, this information is being vastly underutilized.

Why not put it to good use developing customized marketing campaigns? Such campaigns garner high interest, generate significant response rates, lower the cost per lead and pave the way to greater customer retention. A digital press is the tool, and variable data printing is the enabler.

Variable data printing (VDP) is not about selling print, it's about solving problems. An in-plant with a digital press is in a position to provide solutions for its parent organization's challenges. All it takes is some research to identify opportunities with existing products and services.

For example, if your marketing department is ordering large quantities of marketing materials only to throw many out due to obsolescence, you have a big opportunity. Add to this the rate of change of today's products because of new technology or competitive packaging and you have a very compelling argument to print only what you need, when you need it.

A Perfect Opportunity

The November 2002 issue of In-Plant Graphics focused on in-plants in the the manufacturing industry. These in-plants are closely tied to the core business. They print product materials to support that business. They have exactly what digital press owners are searching their radar scopes for: repetitive printing for the same application at frequent intervals. This is the sweet spot for variable data printing. Commercial printers thirst for this kind of opportunity.

Less is more. With targeted VDP promotional pieces you can get a better response with similar or less volume.

Glossary of Variable Data Terms

Conditional logic/business rules: the reasoning that tells a computer which data will appear in which copyholes on the output pages.

Copyhole: the space on a variable data template in which information from a database is placed.

Data field: the space in a database file into which information can be entered by the user.

Delimited text file: a computer file into which text has been entered and separated into data fields. (e.g. a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet)

Discrete step: a command that lets the computer know whether data from a given data field should or should not appear in a copyhole.

Variable data template: the computer file of the "shell" page of a final, printed product. It includes all unchanging information, and the copyholes for variable data.

Getting Started

A variable data job has three new ingredients to consider.

• Data: First is the database report, in the form of an Excel spreadsheet or a delimited text file. Some prior discussion has hopefully taken place to match the data fields in the database report to the requirements of the copyholes in the variable data template.

• Business Rules: For more complex variable data jobs, some business rules (i.e. conditional logic) may also be necessary. These can be implemented in the variable data software you use or can be set up in the database report as a discrete step.

• Variable Data Job Template: This is nothing more than a static page marked up to

identify where copyholes for the variable data will be.

Variable data software will merge all the elements together and compose a variable data output file. The variable data software can be a plug-in to an existing program you are familiar with, it can be a stand-alone desktop application, or it could run on a server in a more automated scenario. (This is typically used in Web-based workflows.)

This software will perform two essential functions. First it will let you mark up a static page to identify the location and type of the variable data copyholes (which will be filled as directed by the data file). It will also compose all the job elements (the static page, the variable data copyholes, the data and the business rules) and produce a variable data output file that is ready to go to press.

Handling The Data

Those with direct mailing operations will already have data handling expertise and will be able to support the data handling requirements. Others could utilize their IT departments to perform this task.

A Universal Standard

In 1999, the Digital Printing Council of the Printing Industries of America recognized that the growth rate of variable data was being severely inhibited by the lack of a universal standard. The Committee for Graphic Arts Technical Standards (CGATS), accredited by the American National Standards Institute to develop U.S. standards for the printing, publishing and converting industry, took up the challenge.

With the cooperation of the Print on Demand Initiative (PoDI) and Adobe, the Standard for Variable Printing Data Exchange using PPML and PDF - PPML/VDX (Personalized Print Markup Language/variable data eXchange) was developed. It received formal approval in June 2002 making it an accredited Standard. PPML/VDX is currently in process in ISO (International Standards Organization) to become an International Standard.

More information on PPML/VDX (aka CGATS .20 - 2002) can be found at www.npes.org.

One frequent concern is the level of database expertise required. Let me address that by saying you don't need to be an expert in database management systems. That is the domain of the client supplying you the data. The requirement for any variable data job is to be able to communicate what data is needed, what the naming and format conventions are, and to confirm that the data is available in the first place. Of course, the data needed is governed by the page design.

The data handling tasks require a cross-knowledge of the graphic arts page and some expertise with spreadsheets. You will need data manipulation tools—Excel at the very least. Or, for more sophisticated manipulating, software such as Filemaker Pro or Microsoft Access. These are just a few examples.

If you are producing a lot of direct mail pieces, then mailing software may also be a consideration to obtain postal discounts. Software can verify addresses and zip codes, and presort your data files into postal sort order before you link it to your variable data copyholes. It can also provide you with the correct bar code information if you are using automation rates. (More information on postal rates, regulations and qualifying guidelines can be found at www.usps.com/businessmail101.)

A Simple Business Rule

You have designed a promotional piece that will make one of three offers based on what a targeted reader currently owns. If you also want to display an image of the new product, that image generally wouldn't be able to be identified at the time of the export from the database. The database would be able to identify what current products the reader owns, and this is the data field that would be exported.

A business rule to make this work for the copyhole that contains the promotional image would look something like this (conceptually):

IF current_product = A use Promo_image1

ELSE

IF current_product = B use Promo_image2

ELSE

use Promo_image3

The method to achieve this will vary based on the software you use, but this gives a general idea of the conditional logic for a simple business rule. You don't need to be an expert in database management systems. That is the domain of the client supplying you the data.

Business Rules

How you enter the conditional logic will be a function of the variable data software solution you choose. Keep in mind that not all jobs require this. Business rules are required when the data file isn't an exact match to the copyholes and requires some interpretation of the data to make everything work properly (see Business Rule sidebar).

Variable Data Job Template

There are desktop VDP solutions available today that are inexpensive ways to get started. If you use QuarkXpress, Personalizer-X is a plug-in that lets you mark up elements directly in QuarkXpress. Heidelberg's NexTreme software is an Adobe Acrobat plug-in. Open a PDF file and add variable data copyholes to it. Others such as Print Shop Mail, for example, are stand-alone applications that import a static page and let you mark it up. The higher end products are stand-alone workstations or servers, some including their own scripting language to allow you to produce very sophisticated variable output including data-driven graphics (i.e. bars, charts, tables).

Some of the main considerations that will determine which variable data software you choose to mark up and compose your VDP output will depend on your affinity for Macintosh or PC platforms, your comfort level with a stand-alone application versus a plug-in, the complexity of the jobs, and the daily production volume you will process. Not too long ago, these considerations had to take a back seat to the digital equipment that you installed. Each device came with its own custom software.

The PPML/VDX Standard (see sidebar) is an enabler for variable data printing. Instead of a single, turnkey solution that is tied to the digital press, PPML/VDX allows you freedom of the press. You can select best-in-class variable data solutions based on your job requirements.

In Summary

If any of this seems daunting, there are resources available to assist you. Heidelberg Business Development Services, for example, provides value-added tools, support and coaching to help you find the opportunities for variable data printing. Heidelberg also runs a VDP FastStart Professional Services Program to help operations new to variable data printing. This puts someone on site to work with the production people to prepare them for their first VDP jobs.

The combination of a digital press and variable data technology allows an in-plant to develop a more solutions-oriented relationship with other departments.

Companies are looking for a competitive advantage. They want to sell more and to stand out. Variable data printing can do this. In-plants are in a position to solve some of the business challenges facing their enterprises.

Digital press technology and variable data printing can build a knowledge base within the in-plant to make it a more sought-after department.