Variable Data printing is a digital printing process that allows you to customize text, graphics or images on each individual printed piece. This is great for reaching your customers on a more personal level.  The most basic example of variable data printing is addressing a form letter with a first and last name.  However, variable data printing gives you the ability to really customize every part  of your marketing piece to really target each individual you want to reach.

For instance, say you are a pet supply store and want to send your customers a postcard with a deal on food for their pets. Not only can you put the customer’s name on the card, but you could print the address of the store location nearest to them, a personalized QR code,  and you can change out the pet image on the postcard so it matches the type of animal they have. If they are dog owners, it prints a dog image. If they are bird people, it prints a bird.

All of this variable data is printed without slowing down the production process. Because each printed piece is unique from the one before it, variable data printing can only be done with digital printing.

If you’ve ever done a Mail-Merge in Microsoft Word then you have a basic understanding of how variable data works. We start with a spreadsheet, generally an Excel file, with columns for the various types of information and then the rows are populated with the data specific to that individual. For images, you insert the URL to where the image is stored.

Next, design your marketing piece keeping in mind which areas you want to be variable and how changing those areas might affect the flow of your design.

Then we merge the design with the spreadsheet information using merge tags just like you would in Word. The difference is, we either use more powerful page layout software or, many times, the digital printer has built-in software to merge the two documents right at the printer.