DIGITAL digest

Offering multiple choices or options—such as destinations for a family vacation—in a promotional offer kills response rates, Hughes continued. “Send one choice at a time and use different messages for other choices.”

Frank McPherson, president of Custom Data Imaging in Markham, Ontario, offered an intriguing suggestion for how to more efficiently produce some variable printing jobs. “We have product lines that are strictly done by the data department with no one from graphics or prepress getting involved. One of our data people runs the press for that work,” he revealed. “We’ve saved 8,000 to 10,000 man hours a year doing work that way.”