Preparing for PURL and Cross-Media

The issues are complex. I'm annoyed as I'm about to introduce an exciting new, high performance PURL marketing package to the local market.

PURL tools add value to direct mail, creating powerful cross-media campaigns for mind-blowing response rates. No more lousy one per 100 or one per 1,000 responses.  Amazing ROIs ensure it's easy to sell and market to new or existing clients. It's a practical application of what Dr Joe Webb said in 2006 - "Let Print Make New Media Better"  His presentation here

However finding a good digital printshop able to run the VDP component of PURL effortlessly, automatically and without errors is my biggest single headache. I vented my anger on a recent blog by esteemed industry colleague, Eliot Harper, who was actually talking about the performance problems around the most popular VDP software, uDirect from XMPie. It appeared that for many jobs, uDirect appears to run at a fraction of the speed of other Quark/InDesign VDP plugins like Darwin, or my favourite, Designmerge. Read about it here

An expertly configured VDP workflow and print system should run only marginally slower than when printing multiple copies of a 'normal' static job!

Who's taking on the responsibility of making it work?

In nearly all cases I find that the VDP software and hardware solutions installed by most of our suppliers here (and worldwide) is poorly chosen, poorly configured and with only basic user training included. Spending more than 2-3 days training is deemed 'unnecessary' or too costly. What I find odd, is that users left in this predicament aren't complaining. Me, I would be off to my solicitor and/or demanding my money back from the supplier. If it were a hardware problem, printshop owners don't hesitate. But as it's software, we're all happy to accept rubbish product and support - XMPie users especially.  

Current training on VDP doesn't even address the big issue of how to help print clients build their own clean databases, which are needed for every VDP job. Has any print supplier ever mentioned the term CRM?

It all reminds me of the issues I had with our training schools years back, when I ran a few prepress troubleshooting and preflight courses. I complained that they only covered InDesign, Quark, Freehand, Photoshop etc up to the print dialogue box. Their reply? "That's the printers job to teach users the print and colour management aspects. Not ours. We teach design".

It appears supplier VDP training is also focused upon the pure design aspect and how the VDP plugin works. None on optimising speed and productivity. 

Anyone looking to change the status quo and have their VDP system run as it should? (Yes, even XMPie). We'd love to hear from you. 

  Phone me on 09-889 0954 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it