All mailing lists must have the following items in separate columns:
First Name, Last Name, Address, City, State, ZIP code, plus any additional merged data, should your job be variable.
We prefer files sent in a Microsoft Excel format.

Set Up the Mailing List Data

• Start your Microsoft Excel program.
• Call up an Excel spreadsheet. Open "File" and click "New."
• Make the first row of the sheet your data labels. For a mailing list, your labels should contain the First Name, Last Name, Address, City, State, ZIP code, plus any additional merged data, should your job be variable.
• Adjust the width of the columns to match the average width of the text that will go into it. This will usually be around 25 character spaces, although you will need less space for state and zip codes.
• Type your data into each subsequent row matching the column headings with the correct data. You now have a column of names, one of addresses and so on through all of the Excel headings.

NCOA Processing & CASS Certificate of Data

Over 40 million Americans change addresses annually, significantly reducing the quality of your mailing list. Now you can ensure that your data is accurate and up-to-date with our National Change of Address (NCOA) service. NCOA can substantially reduce undeliverable and duplicate mail pieces by identifying and correcting addressing errors before they enter the mail stream. Your records are compared against the NCOA database to ensure they have the most current addresses and are updated with ZIP+4 certification according to US Postal Service standards.

According to the US Post Office:

• In a recent year, over nine billion pieces of mail were Undeliverable as Addressed (UAA).
• 75% of undeliverable mail could be fixed by running NCOA prior to the mailing.

Having the correct address ensures that your mailings reach all of your supporters, maximizing your fundraising success!

Click Here for full description

Personalized Direct Marketing

Connolly Printing has researched and developed a strategic solution for Personalized Direct Marketing.  Personalized Direct Marketing is a standardized process where trigger events are recognized in your data warehouses, segmented into files and quickly mapped to custom-defined business rules. The rules match the data to pre-defined creative materials and fulfillment templates for production and execution of your event-based marketing campaigns. This solution can be applied in a centralized or distributed environment.

With Direct Marketing, timing is everything.  Marketing departments spend allocated dollars creating a unique brand image and require their Direct Marketing efforts to reflect that consistent image.

With Personalized Direct Marketing capabilities, organizations can re-engineer their consumer communications to:

• Redefine the role of consumer data;
• Provide better segmentation and personalization;
• Enable greater contact frequency;
• Unify the execution process (print, e-mail, telephone); and
• Measure success more accurately.

A Cooperative Solution:

Connolly's Personalized Direct Marketing solution allows mid-market organizations to utilize the technology advances that normally make economic sense in much larger enterprises.
 
Connolly's platform eliminates the need for high levels of development infrastructure expense, while our partnerships decrease the need for large mailing volumes through aggregation. Our client’s customer communications can now have the improved impact of Personalized Direct Marketing though coordinated digital print and e-mail at reasonable costs.

Another challenge faced by many mid-market organizations is how to deploy their critical human resources most efficiently. Connolly’s solution offers help here too. As the execution of Marketing operations is moved outside the enterprise, internal resources are freed to focus on campaign development for innovation and differentiation. Our solution allows outside Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) to run the “jobs” so your internal SME’s can focus on growing the business through improved customer relationships.

Our web-based interface is easy to use. Create and modify your customized creative templates. Begin communicating to your customers based on their unique data and behavioral patterns.

Through Connolly’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) approach, organizations win with our Personalized Direct Marketing solution. Benefits include:

• Testing cycles increase so the organization learns more;
• Personalization lifts response rates 2-10X;
• Creative templates yield consistency;
• Outsourcing focuses staff on innovation vs. rote execution;
• Suppliers guide you around pitfalls vs. learning them for yourself;
• Organizations think in terms of organizational customer communication vs. departmental campaigns; and
• Utilization of CRM investment.

Connolly’s solution is priced to make it easy for you to test first and then roll-out. We’re confident of the results you’ll see.

How it works:

You provide: Consumer Targets and Marketing Expertise

• Behavioral history;
• Data analysis; and
• Creative marketing concept and designs.

We provide: Technology and Workflow Process Knowledge

• Efficient workflow processes;
• Established outsource providers;
• Operational infrastructure; and
• Data and systems integration. 

Client Benefit: Workflow Innovation, Improved Execution and Measurable Results

• Timely, relevant and consistent consumer communication;
• Utilize purchasing activity to drive Direct Marketing programs;
• Provide consumers with choreographed communications;
• Shorten Direct Marketing testing cycles;
• Improve acquisition, activation, up/cross-selling and retention rates; and
• Lifts in response rates of up to 10 times.

For more information on Connolly's Personalized Direct Marketing approach contact us at 781-932-8885.

The technique is a direct outgrowth of digital printing, which harnesses computer databases and digital print devices and highly effective software to create high-quality, full color documents, with a look and feel comparable to conventional offset printing.

Variable data printing enables the mass customization of documents via digital print technology, as opposed to the 'mass-production' of a single document using offset lithography. Instead of producing 10,000 copies of a single document, delivering a single message to 10,000 customers, variable data printing could print 10,000 unique documents with customized messages for each customer.

There are two main operational modes to VDP. In one methodology, the document template and the variable information are both sent to Raster Image Processor (RIP) which combines the two to produce each unique document. The other methodology is to combine the static and variable elements prior to printing, using specialized VDP software applications. These applications produce an optimized print stream, such as PostScript and PPML, which organize the print stream efficiently so that the static elements are only processed once by the RIP.

There are several levels of variable printing. The most basic level involves changing the salutation or name on each copy. More complicated variable data printing uses 'versioning', where there may be differing amounts of customization for different markets, with text and images changing for groups of addresses based upon which segment of the market is being addressed. Finally there is full variability printing, where the text and images can be altered for each individual address. All three types of variable data printing begin with a basic design that indicates which sections can be altered and a database of information that fills in the changeable fields. Since 2005, the term TransPromo or transpromotional has emerged to cover the merging of promotional content and transactional print pieces by involving more business users in the printing process.

The returns for variable printing vary from double the normal return at the basic level to 10-15 times the return for fully variable jobs. This naturally depends on content and the relevancy of that content, but the technique presents an effective tool for increasing ROI (return on investment) on marketing campaigns.

VDP (Variable Data Print) Guide

With the increasing growth of VDP Marketing, Connolly Printing would like to assist you by giving you a simple step by step variable print guide. Our guide references the photo examples of both printed output as well as database structure seen below.

1. Open your mailing list data file (if you're doing a VDP mailing based upon a mailing list you already have) or open a new spreadsheet to create one from scratch.

2. Count how many variables you intend on having on your VDP job and create separate fields for them in the spreadsheet (remember to keep your field names simple and something that both you and your contact/designer can easily understand based upon your job).

   Note: If your VDP job contains variable images, please keep the filenames simple and consistent with variable field name in the spreadsheet (please keep all images in jpeg/jpg format and include extension in filename on spreadsheet).

3. Input your data into appropriate fields.

   Note: If you're working from an existing spreadsheet file, the recommended method to input your variable data would be to sort the list by an indicator (city/town, neighborhood or whatever else is being used to specify your targets).

   Note: If you're creating your own from scratch it is recommended that you create an indicator field if one does not already exist in the standard data that will help you sort your file.

4. Save your file as an .xls when using excel or .csv (comma separated values) if using any other spreadsheet/database program.

   Note: Please put all images and data file into an empty folder, then compress it to a zipped file before sending.