Direct Mail

Yes, Digital Inkjet Can Help You Create High-Quality, Effective Direct Mail

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For some time, offset printing was considered the best print type for direct mail for the color and print quality, but also for the ability to print large runs in a cost-effective way. But direct mail — along with most forms of print sales and marketing collateral — has changed, and the static nature of offset printing doesn’t provide designers and marketers with the flexibility and versatility necessary to meet market demands. 

Digital inkjet printing has become a powerful — and increasingly common — tool for designers and marketers to create more dynamic direct mailers that cost less to produce and generate better results, particularly with response rates. 

“Inkjet is the platform that offers the necessary versioning, flexibility, scalability, and production quality,” write Elizabeth Gooding and Mary Schilling, authors of The Designer’s Guide to Inkjet.

Here, we’ll look at why designers and marketers are making the move from offset to digital inkjet for direct mail, and what makes digital inkjet the better press technology for direct mail. 

 

Direct Mail

Digital inkjet offers the same print quality as offset

Offset printing was once considered the standard for print color and quality; the method of ink application, which uses large metal plates, offered a high level of consistency when printing in black and white or full color, and it also created smooth, even surfaces even with a high level of color saturation. 

Digital inkjet is now able to print with the same outstanding color quality and consistency with high levels of color saturation. Digital inkjet’s single-pass ink application process uses a fixed number of printheads that span the width of the sheet and apply the ink as the sheet passes through the press. Not only is this faster and more efficient, it helps produce the same consistent, vibrant colors, which helps designers and marketers to create more visually appealing, engaging direct mail pieces. 

This level of quality — combined with the speed and consistency of inkjet — makes it possible to produce offset-quality pieces in a more cost-effective manner. 

Digital inkjet makes variable data printing possible

One of the big reasons why designers and marketers have relied on offset for direct mail production is the ability to print high-volume runs reliably and consistently. However, today’s consumers expect more from direct mail marketing, particularly in terms of personalization and messaging that’s tailored to their unique challenges of experiences. 

Offset’s use of  large, prefabricated metal plates makes personalization both time-consuming and cost prohibitive. Digital inkjet makes it possible for designers and marketers to incorporate variable data printing (VDP) to produce personalized, highly-targeted mailers in any quantity using a wide range of detailed customer data. 

This type of personalization has a number of benefits. First, it increases the likelihood that your audience opens, engages, and responds to your mailer, thus helping to boost the ROI on your print marketing spend. Plus, tailoring your messaging in a way that resonates with your audience  on the first attempt can help reduce the need for subsequent mailings or touchpoints. 

What’s more, the ability to use customer data to create personalized messaging opens the door for exploration and creativity. For example, you can incorporate images, illustrations, colors, fonts, or other design elements that speak directly to a very targeted audience and supplement — or even elevate — the personalized content of your mailer. 

“By using full-color inkjet, the design frameworks for customer communications can take full advantage of sophisticated messaging tools and ‘big data’ for increased personalization and customer engagement,” write Gooding and Schilling. 

Digital inkjet helps increase your speed to market

Effective direct mail marketing is all about timing. The products and services are often being offered on a limited basis, or there is a strong sense of urgency that’s designed to encourage recipients to act quickly. This means speed to market is incredibly important to ensure your mailer reaches mailboxes at the right moment, giving your audience enough time to act but not giving them too much time to sleep on your offer. 

This is where the speed and process efficiency of digital inkjet truly shines, helping designers and marketers reduce the longer lead times of offset by removing the cumbersome metal plates required for production. 

Plus, with digital inkjet’s print-on-demand (POD) capability, you can quickly scale the quantity of mailers or make in-the-moment design and copy changes to help react to market demand, leverage an accelerated speed to market, and create more flexible direct mail campaigns. 

“This opens up tremendous opportunities for designers to improve the clarity and cost-effectiveness of customer communications through smart, process-friendly design,” write Gooding and Schilling. 

Direct mail the digital inkjet way can help designers and marketers create a more agile print model that prioritizes efficiency and a cost-effective approach to producing high-quality print.

Direct Mail

The Designer’s Guide to Inkjet, 3rd Edition has everything you need to know about how to harness digital inkjet print technology. Download the guide.