How To: Ensuring the Mailpiece Gets to Your Donor Exactly as Intended

The production process can seem like an overwhelming loop of reviews and approvals. And it absolutely can be! There are endless items that need to be checked and rechecked to make sure a mail piece hits a donor’s house accurately and on time. What is PS looking for and how do we ensure that everything gets done?

Today we will look at the typical production workflow milestones and identify the places where PS can help you make sure your mail piece turns out the way you planned.

First and foremost, we start with a schedule. 

Based on the current production environment, we may be writing this schedule 6 months in advance. The preliminary dates will most likely change as the work gets moving, but right from the start, we want to establish some basic deliverable dates based on when the mailing needs to be in the donor’s homes. This usually includes art and data release dates, postage due dates and the final mail date.

Next is for production to see the mailplan that has been set by the client. 

This may be a production matrix, a strategy document or some variation of those two.  Here we need to identify what is mailing and how many of each component is needed (approximately).  PS is also looking to help optimize the mailing – are all of the specifications (size, color, folds, perfs, etc.) clear? And will this package be able to mail as intended? What kind of postage is needed? Will anything need to be produced early?  PS will provide feedback or ask questions about the mailplan to ensure that everyone is aligned with the purpose of the mailing.

The mailplan then allows PS to start building a budget. 

The PS account team will reach out to our vast supplier network to try to obtain the best pricing possible. The past year has brought many challenges to this part of the process, so this initial budget is typically only good for 30 days. Depending on how early we start the budgeting process, there may be a shift in final pricing once things go into production. PS will keep you informed along the way if we see a shift in pricing.

Finally, we are ready to start releasing art and moving production forward!  

As art arrives at PS, we review the PDFs of the art to make sure each piece matches what was priced out. We also verify pricing for the print portion at this time. The art is sent to the printers and then proofs will be provided within a few days. These proofs allow us to see exactly what is being printed. PS is checking these against the PDFs that came with the original art. We will send these off for client approval once the PDFs match the art that was submitted. The account team will also call out any questions for the client if something appears to be inconsistent with the intention of the mailing. For instance, if the envelope is supposed to mail with a live stamp but there is an indicia in the art.

Proof approvals also tell us the time at which final quantities need to print. This step can, in some cases, happen before there are final counts for data, but it is imperative to have a quantity to print by the time proof approvals happen. Delays in syncing the proof approvals and print quantities can mean overprinting or under printing of components. So keeping the proof approval timing in mind can help ensure you are ready when the time comes to finalize the printing quantities.

Data release is the next step of the process.

Depending on the schedule for the job, this may happen weeks after the printing process has started, or it could be in a matter of days. In this step, PS will acknowledge receipt of the data, verify that they have received the files that were sent, verify that there are enough printed pieces and submit final work orders to the mailshop.

The next couple of weeks will bring a lot of items that need to be checked including:

• Counts – this will usually include a breakout of how many names per file came into the mailshop and how many names are coming out of those files once they are processed or combined for mailing. You may also have a need for specialty counts like counts per state or counts that identify a particular affinity code.
• Dumps and setups – this is going to be the major investment in time as it is where the variable content is going to be added. Names, addresses, ask strings, etc will all be checked to make sure that each donor is receiving the intended copy.
  • Dumps are a selection of names from the data files that show each of the variable fields as they appear in the data.
  • Setups show you those same records from the dumps and how the data fields will lay out on the final printed form.

PS will work to double-check the records pulled in the dump and make sure they make sense in the setups before they are sent to the client. Changes at this stage can result in additional programming charges or delays. PS does all we can to keep the job moving.

• Insertions – once the variables and copy are approved, PS will get a PDF that shows exactly how the individual printed pieces will fit into the envelope and in which order. This will include a front and a back scan of each piece of the mailing so that each version of the printed pieces can be verified. We will send those over for approval so you can see that everything is correct for each package.
• Lives – these are usually the final step. Here you can see a scan of a real mail piece as it comes off the inserting machines. For most mailings, this happens on the day of the mailing. So by this step, everything should be in line with the prior approvals.

Production Solutions is here to help guide you through this process and make sure your mailing gets to your donors just as intended.  If you have any questions we would love to talk to you about our services.