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Troubleshooting Your Printer

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Troubleshooting Your Printer

When I was growing up, the only way to print something was to take it to school and hope that the technology lab could read your floppy disk. However, these days, most people have a printer at home that they can use whenever they need to. I don't know about your, but at my house, we have our fair share of trouble with our printer. Sometimes it jams, while other times we end up dealing with clogged print heads and streaky lines on our documents. Fortunately, I have learned how to troubleshoot these problems, and I want to share the solutions with you.

4 Features That Define Mail Piece Printing

24 February 2022
 Categories: , Blog

A quality mail piece can help you spread a message or sell a product or service. When you do mail piece print, though, you need to understand how the basic features will affect your efforts. Folks starting mail printing projects should understand these four features that define the process.

Variable Data Printing

VDP is one of the central features of modern mail campaigns. The most basic version allows you to apply variables like names and addresses to pieces. More complex versions also can change the copy and imagery based on custom profiles so you can customize appeals to their interests. You can even produce items that offer different sales pitches, such as coupons or memberships, based on the target customer's profile.

Notably, you'll need to have a very good customer database to maximize VDP's value. If you're not already working on developing customer profiles, start now. It will have a huge impact on your mail piece printing efforts.

Dimensions

Most forms of mail printing try to take advantage of the rate chart from the post office based on different dimensions. You should get a card with the current dimensions for mail pieces and the accompanying rates from your local post office. Try to tailor each campaign to the chart so you can keep costs down.

Also, be sure to think about how the mail treats lumpy or unusually shaped packages. Try to put non-standard items in boxes or envelopes the next size up to avoid incurring costs for sending odd items.

Simple Written Copy

Usually, mail pieces include some written copy that includes a marketing appeal. Especially when it comes to using copy on the exterior of your mail printing products, keep the text simple. Use large fonts and short phrases to present simplified appeals to the audience.

You will also want to use visually simple fonts for your typography. Anything with artistic flourishes is out. Clean lines and high readability are the keys. Also, use contrasting colors and tones to emphasize the text against any background images.

Campaign Tracking

Take advantage of variable data printing methods to also tag each item with a tracking code. If you send a bunch of coupons to folks as mart of a mail printing campaign, tie the coupons to unique identifiers. As people redeem the coupons, you'll be able to scan them into a database and check response rates. You can then tie the codes to different campaign elements, making it easier to determine what does or doesn't work. Keep refining your pieces until you have a strong set of appeals.