Hotline Newsletter #10, Affixing a Removable Label to Your Printed Piece
March 5, 1996
I will receive a number of requests each month from printers who
want to find a vendor who can print a letter, postcard, or
envelope with a label attached so that the recipient can peel off
the label and stick it onto something.
There are, of course, companies who provide this service, but it
is also one that even the smallest printer can do most of the job
in-house.
The first thing you do is to get with a local direct mail company.
You can find them in the Yellow Pages of any reasonable size city
under Mailing Services, Letter Shop, Direct Mail Marketing,
etc. You are looking for one who has a Cheshire mailing machine -
or something similar.
You tell them what you want to print, the stock, quantity, etc.
and that you want a Cheshire label affixed in a certain position
on each piece.
If the mailer can take flat 8.5x11 sheets of label stock, you can
even print the labels in house. If he wants 1-up, 3-up, or 4-up
continuous labels you will have to have a forms printer print them
for you.
Let's assume he can take the flat 8.5x11 sheets. You get a layout
from him, set the copy however many up he can take, paste up your
copy to that layout, and print the labels on pressure sensitive
stock. People like Gummed Papers of America (who advertise in
virtually all graphic arts publications) can provide the stock.
What the mailer will do is to cut and affix the label complete
with the carrier backing to your mailing piece.
When the recipient receives the piece, all he has to do is peel
off the label and stick it on whatever he is going to stick it on.
You want to make certain that you order the proper pressure
sensitive material. Find out from your customer what the label is
going to be affixed to and make your label stock vendor or label
printer aware of how the label is going to be used.
Where Can I Get ?????
Occasionally Hotline will get requests that are almost impossible,
if not impossible to identify. I will attempt here to give you a
few ideas as to how to make that impossible search a little more
than a shot in the dark.
Quite often I will have a piece of pre-printed stock described and
will be asked for its source. A recent example was a pre-printed
sheet of 8.5x11 stock that looked like a piece of paper that had
been wadded up and then straightened out. Or, I'm looking for
someone who has a fold-over business card that looks like a $100
bill.
Locating such an animal is almost impossible without more
information. I lucked out on the sheet that looked like a wadded
up piece of paper. On a recent trip to Houston I stopped by Office
Depot to pick up some supplies and in a display of pre-printed
laser paper was the evasive sheet. I simply picked up a package,
noted it was marketed by Geographics, and when I returned to my
office I searched my sources for the company contact info. I did
not find it, nor would Office Depot provide that info, so I put
what information I had into a growing folder to check out the next
time I attend a stationery show.
In the case of the $100 bill, the possibility of finding that
vendor may well be impossible. That is something that almost any
printer can print in-house. I printed $100 bill business cards
when I had my print shop. I put no identifying marks on the item
so it would be virtually impossible for anyone to find just who
printed it unless the individual who purchased the cards would
provide that information.
If you have a customer who brings in an obscure item for you to
quote on you need as much information as is possible. The original
packaging, if any, can generally provide information. While the
product itself may have Made in Taiwan, the original packaging
may indicate the name of the importer, a trade name, a patent
number, or a copyright notice. The product can be identified from
those, but to identify a product that simply says Made in Taiwan
is almost impossible to identify.
Stationery items are also difficult to identify. Like the ad
specialty business, new items are introduced several times a year
and many slower moving items are dropped as new catalogs are
produced. Finding an item with a specific design is difficult, if
not impossible. The option you may end up with - if your customer
requires that exact item - is to have the item custom manufactured
rather than have a stock item custom imprinted. That will require
a significant quantity.
As noted above, when Hotline receives a request for an item that I
am not able to identify, I put that request in a file folder and
hold it until I attend the next graphic arts, stationery, or ad
specialty trade show. As I walk the aisles looking for new
products or services to put in the database I also search for
those or similar products, ask salespersons if they have ever seen
the product or know who might produce it, etc. Many times I can
find that or a similar produce. It may be too late to help the
reader who was originally made the request, but the next time the
request comes up I will have that contact information.
Once I have located the evasive product or service, I will respond
to the reader with what I have found - generally long after his
requirement was needed, but occasionally giving him the
information to revive the original request.
The longest time I have held a request before finding a potential
vendor has been almost four years. The request was for a post card
printed on a blotter-like stock that when the card was dipped in
water a previously invisible image would appear. As it turned out
I had the vendor (Buse Printing and Advertising) in the database
but did not have him listed for anything similar to this. As it
turned out this was an item Ray Buse printed many years ago but
had put it on the back shelf because interest had died down. The
fact that he did this came up in a conversation about some of the
things I had not been able to locate for readers.
Remember - when you are attempting to run down a specific product
for a customer get all of the information possible. Take the time
to go to as many trade shows as is possible - not only graphic
arts trade shows but also stationery and ad specialty shows. Make
certain you get home with the exhibitor's directory for these
shows as well as those exhibitor's catalogs that have products of
the type you are interested in selling. Hire a high school student
(or one of your children) that knows how to type to enter (or
update) the contact information of each one of those exhibitors
into your own contact database. Once that contact information has
been entered, you should go back and add the various products to
each contact's record. The reason that you should enter the
products is that you need to be familiar with the various products
and the way they are entered.
This may seem time consuming, but I guarantee that it will pay off
at sometime in the future and your customers will think that you
are a real pro.
Til next time, God bless you and yours... cy
Commercial...
To receive a brochure describing how you can have the Helene's Hotline database on your own computer, Email me at hotlinecy@aol.com and give leave your fax number. The Hotline databases, BFP and Ad Specialty BFP give you the ability to easily shop numerous vendors for your outsourcing requirements.
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Date inserted: Thursday, March 07, 1996 1:46:51