Are Recurring Postcard Programs Actually Sustainable?
Regardless of company size or even industry, sustainability ranks as one of the top concerns for brands. But if the continued push for more sustainable practices is making you rethink postcard mailing programs as a part of your overall sales and marketing strategy, there’s a bit of good news for you: regular postcard mailing programs are actually sustainable, provided you think more strategically about how you execute these kinds of high-volume mailings.
The reason this is good news for small to midsize businesses is that we know print communications work. Today’s consumers connect and respond in a deeper, more meaningful way to print, and this is part of the reason why marketers increased their direct mail marketing budgets in 2023, and why many believe this trend will continue in the coming year.
How exactly can large-scale postcard mailing programs be a sustainable form of print communication or customer outreach? Here, we’ll look at a couple steps brands can take to create recurring postcard mailing programs that actually help support your sustainability goals.
Prioritize more sustainable print materials and processes
It may seem obvious, but choosing more eco-friendly inks or papers that use some percentage of post-consumer fibers can help increase the sustainability of your postcard mailings — and the innovations in sustainable ink and paper technology have made these materials a more cost-effective choice for brands that need to get the most out of their print sales and marketing budgets.
But your choice of printing process can also help you create more sustainable postcards.
While offset presses use large, pre-produced plates and rubber cylinders to transfer ink to a sheet, digital and inkjet presses use small printheads to apply ink to the page in tiny drops. This kind of ink application process can print the same vibrant, full-color postcards but with an eye toward reducing the amount of required water and colorant.
What’s more, the plates used in offset printing require some level of chemical treatment to ensure a quality transfer of ink. Plus, these plates and cylinders must be cleaned after each job, a cleaning process that requires the use of harsh and environmentally damaging solvents.
Reduce waste by printing the precise number of postcards for each mailing
For postcard mailing programs — even recurring ones — brands have typically relied on printing extremely large quantities in order to reach the right economies of scale to ensure the lowest price per unit, and to make these postcard mailings worth the investment. However, the difficulty here is that this often results in large numbers of excess copies that often go to waste, and this inefficient use of resources can hamper your sustainability efforts.
Digital print-on-demand technology gives you the ability to print the exact quantity of copies you need right when you need them to reduce wasted copies or resources. In addition, POD provides the ability to scale your quantity up or down at any time during the print process, which helps provide greater flexibility in responding to fluctuations in demand.
Personalize your postcard mailing programs to increase the likelihood of response
The ability of personalized print to prompt your target audience to respond or act cannot be understated. For example, customers are 70% more likely to complete a purchase from a brand that personalizes their outreach, and this makes personalization key for brands looking to utilize postcard mailing programs as part of their sales and marketing communications strategy.
Digital print-on-demand technology can help you capitalize on the kind of custom print communications that prompt consumers to act by creating personalized, highly-targeted pieces that are designed to get results. Digital POD technology allows you to leverage a variety of data points like job title, geographic location, or purchase history to print personalized pieces that are more likely to resonate with your audience.
Digital POD gives you the power to make edits or revisions to your project mid-campaign based on new consumer insights, updated customer data, or strategic changes to the tone of your messaging. This more strategic approach to postcard mailing programs helps increase the likelihood your target audience takes a desired action, and this reduces the need to waste additional resources on subsequent print mailings aside from postcards.
Varispark’s digital POD approach can help you print high-quality, recurring monthly postcards that align with your sustainability goals and help you grow your business. As a full-service print and mail service provider, we have the experience and knowledge to help you execute postcard programs from start to finish.
Tell us about your next project, and we’ll be in touch to help you create eco-friendly print that works.