Minnesota Printing and Direct Mail Experts
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Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Print Budget: How To Save Money On Your Printing, Tip #2
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, MN (with convenient parking!) has tips on how to spend less on printing:
Tip #2: Use a “Shell and Imprint” Program, also known as a “Stationery Fulfillment Program”.
“Shell and Imprint Program” definition: A system of pre-printing the static information on an inventoried item (business cards, for example) that will, on-demand, be imprinted with the variable (or personalized) information.
How it works:
- Step 1: Produce the shells: Usually it is the “shell” (the logo, tagline, and other static info) that is the most intricate and colorful design-wise. Because of the set-up involved in printing, it saves money to order larger quantities at one time rather than little bits several times. The more intricate the “shell” design (foil, embossing, multiple colors, etc.), the more this holds true. Shells can be amazingly inexpensive (depending on the design, of course).
- Step 2: Imprint the shell with the personalized info: usually it is the imprint that is the simple, often 1 color, part of the piece. Imprinting, particularly digital imprinting, is very inexpensive. (We can also make it super-easy, too! With an on-line ordering system that offers an immediate PDF proof, lay-out guidelines, ordering guidelines and ordering privelage rules built right in, the process couldn’t be any easier.)
Who it works for:
- Companies with multiple locations
- Distant sales offices
- Companies with kiosks or micro-offices
- Advertising initiatives with different offers, information, or expiration dates
- Any company that has even just a few employees that have business cards
What it works on:
- All Business Stationery (business cards, letterhead, envelopes, note-cards, note-pads)
- Brochures (personalize the info, the location or the offer)
- Coupons (perhaps an A/B split to test which offer gets the most hits)
- Training materials (can make more of an impact if they are personalized in some way)
- Certificates and Awards (with variable data with the winner’s name)
- Forms (again…multiple locations??)
Additional Benefit:
- It gives the manager of the program more control over the look, design and quality.
- We don’t charge for managing the inventory of the shells!
We have saved our clients untold amounts of money by implementing this process: from 5 person offices to huge corporations with many national and international location. We have experience with everything from translation to international shipping.
If you are interested in discussing how we may be able to save you money in this way (or any other suggestions we may have – we offer a FREE PRINT-SPEND ANALYSIS program), please contact us @ 612.522.7600 or through our website @ www.highlightprinting.com. Also, we welcome your comments to this blog.
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80’s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE.
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis: Digital Printing vs. Offset Printing
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, MN with convenient parking: defines digital printing and offset printing:
These days, almost all types of printing start with a digital file…so is it all digital printing? No. There are important differences between digital printing and offset printing and pros and cons to each:
Offset Printing definition: A printing process that requires plates and ink. The ink transfers to the image on the plate, and then “offsets” onto the paper.
Digital Printing definition: A printing process that “rips” data to an output device to tell it where and what amounts of toner to put on the paper.
Pros and Cons of digital printing and offset printing:
- Digital Printing is less expensive on lower quantities and offset printing is less expensive on higher quantities.
- Digital Printing can be “on demand”. For instance, if you need 20 of something, you can order 20 of something.
- Digital Printing requires less paper to set up on, and less chemicals to run, so is more “green”.
- Digital Printing can come off the printer collated and even bound/finished.
- Digital Printing can incorporate variable data and mailing info right in the printing process – it can go straight from the printer to the post office.
- Digital Printing primarily uses toner for imaging. Toner does not soak into the sheet of paper so can crack if not carefully handled. Also, toner can re-melt if sent through another device that heats the sheet (such as a laser printer to print your letter on pre-printed letterhead.)
- Digital Printing requires no time to dry like offset does, so often can be produced faster.
- Digital Printing often has a sheen – which can be perceived as a pro or a con.
- Offset Printing presses generally print much faster than digital printing presses, so production can actually be faster using the offset printing method when the quantities are large.
- Offset Printing can often support a larger size sheet of paper so if there are multiple versions that can all fit up on one press-run, it can be less expensive and maybe faster.
There are many, many factors to consider when choosing digital printing or offset printing – we can help you decide which method is best for your particular need.
If you’d like to see samples and/or talk about your specific project, you can contact us @ 612.522.7600 or through our website @ www.highlightprinting.com. We welcome your comments to this blog.
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80’s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE.
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis: Copies vs. Digital Printing
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, MN: defines copies and digital printing:
Whether black and white copies, color copies, black and white digital printing or color digital printing, the differences are consistent:
- Copies are when an “original” is laid on the glass of a copier and the “Start” button is pushed – it just makes a copy of it. This is an analog process – it is just taking a picture of the original, there is no scanning of data.
- Digital Printing is producing a document from a file. So it’s like making 100, 1000, or 1,000,000 originals.
There are 2 main types of digital printing: Toner based and Ink Based:
- Toner based…well, you can figure it out…it uses toner. OK, but besides that, this is the process most commonly referred to when talking of digital printing - some machines can support variable data and mailing/address block info (so straight from the printer to the post-office), almost all can produce a collated piece, and some can actually do bindery/finishing in-line.
- Ink Based: These are traditional offset printing presses that have a digital plating system right on the press itself. This method is good for low quantity runs of exactly the same thing…it has no capacity for printing out a multiple page collated and/or bound documents, and cannot produce variable data or address mailing projects. Also, you would never produce a low quantity this way because the digital plates and makeready make low quantities more expensive.
If you’d like to see samples and/or talk about your specific project, you can contact us @ 612.522.7600 or through our website @ www.highlightprinting.com. We welcome your comments to this blog.
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80’s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE.
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis: Print Budget: How To Save Money On Your Printing, Tip #1
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Minneapolis has tips on how to spend less on printing:
Tip #1: Buy only what you think you are going to use. Seems obvious, but there could be quite a bit of thought that goes into this decision:
- First and most importantly - work with a printer who can offer creative suggestions and solutions…one you feel keeps YOUR best interests at heart. (Ummm…I just happen to know of such a printer
)
Buy fewer:
- Evaluate the order history on that particular piece. A printer who has those records at their figertips and can give you immediate feedback and advice is a valuable asset. (Yes, we do. In fact, we evaluate it every time you place an order.)
- Order enough to create a logical re-order schedule. We generally advise our clients to get set-up on about a 6 month re-order cycle…not too many to inventory in case the piece should become obsolete, but enough to make the price per piece affordable.
- If this is the first printing of the piece, try to project the per day, per week, or per month usage and mutiply it out.
- Digital printing in recent years has made low quantity runs more affordable, so consider ordering fewer and printing digitally for the first run to “dip your toe in the water”. The added benefit is that many times there are things you might want to tweak after using the piece for a little while. For higher quantities, though, offet printing is still the way to go.
Buy more:
- If confidence is high that nothing will change, on an inventoried item you could go out on a limb a little bit and order more to get your per piece price even lower.
- Warehousing and inventory release programs: If you need a zillion of something, go ahead and order a zillion! It can lower the per piece rate considerably. If you don’t have room to inventory it, give us a call.
Less vs More:
- Ask you printer to estimate a range of quantities. Common requests are 250 vs 500 vs 1000 OR 1000 vs 2500 vs 10000 OR 10,000 vs 25,000 vs 50,000…you get it. Spread the quanities out a bit and you can get a pretty good picture of the prices between the quantities is, too.
I can’t say it enough:
- Work with someone that comes highly recommended, that you work well with, that can propose creative solutions, and that you trust.
If you have any questions about this or any other printing related topic, you can either add a comment to this blog, call us @ 612.522.7600, or contact us through our website @ www.highlightprinting.com
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80’s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE.
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Market Research on 4-Color Digital Envelope Printing
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Minneapolis, is asking for your input:
THE CHALLENGE: Periodically we get calls requesting four color evelopes printing at lower quantities. In our quest for constant improvement, we have not been entirely satisfied with the present solutions available. Most of the need that we see is for invitations – particularly business invitations – usually running at 1000 or less, and often even just 250. But we also see requests for #10’s, 6×9’s, 9×12’s, etc. Here are the “conventional” ways full color envelopes are generally produced:
- Offset printing 250 4-color envelopes is expensive and often the envelopes wrinkle or crease because of the air trapped inside (we’ve got solutions to combat this, but still…).
- Digital Printing on standard digital output devices, while cost effective, doesn’t run as efficiently as we’d like, and we often have lots of waste – again, because of wrinkling.
- Jet-press printing 4-color envelopes is a good solution, but the set-up at low quantities is a little expensive.
THE POSSIBLE SOLUTION: We have located a digital 4-color laser (no, not ink-jet) envelope printer. The research we have seen so far appears positive: reasonable price, good quality, efficient production.
THE QUESTION(s): Should we buy it? The requests we get for this need only pop up every month or 2. Do you need, or do you think there is a market for, 4-color low quantity envelopes? Is this a situation where we can “Build it and they will come”? Along with our other sort of niche products (in-house thermography, in-house commercial-level perfect binding, and a couple of marketing innovations: digital full color pocket folders and Capture cards), is there a market for this…maybe even wholesale to other print shops?
Please add your comments to this blog – we would love your opinion! Or, you can call us @ 612.522.7600, or contact us through our website @ www.highlightprinting.com
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80’s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE.
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Offering FREE Digital Printing To Downtown Minneapolis Businesses
Highlight Printing, near downtown Minneapolis, for a limited time, is offering the following introductory offer to new business clients:
FREE! = 50, 8.5×11, 4 color, 1 sided, digital color prints
WAIT! THERE’S MORE! While we are busy printing your free project (and showing off our master-level customer service skills and our soon-to-be award winning quality), we’ll RAISE THE NUMBER OF FREE PRINTS TO 100 with one small condition: request a free estimate of one of your up-coming printing projects. It’s that easy. There’s no gimmick - we are an established, well-respected, local printer with growth goals for this year and are hoping to introduce ourselves and all that we offer…to YOU!
AND MORE! The first project you print with us (after the freebee) will have a 10% First Time Customer Discount.
AND MORE! If you come by in person to pick up the project, the owner of Highlight Printing, Lisa Bickford, will make you a fresh, warm beverage of your choice: latte, espresso, coffee or tea. (Yes, we have an espresso machine at the office and we stock Starbucks coffee and a few flavor syrups.)
Why are we doing this? Simple…we have a great shop at a great location (FREE, CONVENIENT PARKING, TOO), and we want to introduce ourselves to you, so you can start thinking of us for your printing needs. YOU can see all of the details about our location, and our wide range of capabilites at our website: www.highlightprinting.com We pride ourselves on the relationship we create with our clients and look forward to the opportunity to work with and get to know you.
The fine print:
- Paper = must print on a “house stock”.
- No additional bindery included except for trimming.
- File = must be print ready and be uploaded through our website. After uploading, someone will contact you right away.
- Delivery = We will deliver either in person or via UPS for no charge. If the time-line is such that you need to have them couriered, that would be at your expense. Or if you can pick them up, see the latte offer, above.
THAT’S IT – IT’S THAT EASY! If you have any questions…anything at all…please feel free to contact us by either using the comment section on this blog, or calling us @ 612.522.7600, or emailing through the website @ www.highlightprinting.com
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80’s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE.
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Business Stationery Production Methods
Business Stationery: Digital Printing or Offset Printing…or a combination?
In our experience, most identity packages are 2-3 spot colors and it used to be that every component (letterhead, envelopes, business cards, and labels) was printed via offset printing. Lately, we are seeing a shift in the acceptability of using offset printing for some items and digital printing on others. Digital printing and offset printing do not match perfectly…perhaps they never will. So the deciding factors come down to these 2 things:
*Is the difference either within tolarable ranges, or can the package be designed in such a way to have the differences be an asset?
And
*Budget
2 recent examples of using a combination of digital printing and offset printing:
1. Just yesterday I met with a designer that was assembling an identity package for a customer that has 2 people in their office. Originally, they were only requesting letterhead and business cards, so the designer was considering printing both digitally. (Note – digitally printed letterhead is a whole different subject that I will blog about later.) However, when the client requested various sizes of envelopes as well, it was determined that the letterhead should shift to being printed offset with the envelopes, but the business cards should still print digitally. Factors in the decision included design evaluation (it was determined the end product would be within acceptable ranges) and budget (budget was not tight, but it seemed wasteful to spend the dough where it didn’t need to be spent.)
2. The second example is Highlight’s own stationery package. Our recently re-designed business cards print 4 color digital on the back and 3 color offset on the front. Our letterhead and envelopes will continue to be printed offset. The reasons behind our decision? It will look best produced this way – the 4 color side “pops” a bit more digitally than offset, and it allows us to showcase some of our different capabilites.
These are just a couple examples…with each stationery package it is fun and productive to think these choices through. If you would like to see what we can do for you, we’d be happy to either show you what we have done, or put a sample together specifically for you. Please call us at 612.522.7600 or check out our website @ www.highlightprinting.com
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80’s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution.
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovations.
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Offers Unique Marketing Solution
Highlight Printing, a Minneapolis, MN Printer: Producing low quantity full-color pocket folders economically
The pocket folder – what a great way to present materials to a potential new client! Not only does it give you a lot of “real estate” on which to market your product, establish your brand, or convey whatever other message you want, it keeps all of the info you want to give to the recipient contained and orderly…giving you and your sales staff a more polished look.
At most printers, the minimum quantity for pocket folders is 500 or 1000. At Highlight Printing, we have developed a method to quickly and economically produce full-color pocket folders in minimum quantities as low as 5, allowing for personalization of your presentation and low or no inventory. (Of course if higher quantities are what you need, Highlight would be happy to accomodate those orders as well!) Highlight can even help design the folders and everything that goes inside them: sell sheets, samples, business cards, cover letters on letterheads…everything.
How Highlight Printing uses pocket folders: A few of the challenges I have faced in marketing Highlight Printing are: creating a systematic marketing plan, an eye-catching brand, and marketing tools that give my sales force an edge. We have found that pocket folders continue to be a great solution to all of these challenges. Just yesterday we had a “collating party” where a few of us assembled 200 pocket folders with our “brand” splashed all over the folder and filled with samples and a sell sheet listing our capabilities. If you would like to see what we can do for you, we’d be happy to either show you what we have done, or put a sample together specifically for you. Please call us at 612.522.7600 or check out our website @ www.highlightprinting.com
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80’s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution.
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovations.
