ANALYSIS: B2B marketers procrastinate over VDP

Innovation is a key requirement for marketing in any field. Business marketers in particular are constantly under pressure from their employers to find new, better, faster and more effective ways of speaking to customers and prospects, and ultimately driving revenue. As a result, they are typically quick to seize new ideas or concepts that provide opportunities for more effective campaigns.

But whilst some new developments or opportunities are grabbed with both hands by marketers (eg. search marketing, email marketing, SMS by consumer marketers), others take longer to permeate through. Possibly the best example of such overlooked innovations is variable digital print (VDP).

VDP is a collaboration between intuitive use of data and flexible printing techniques which enables high levels of customisation of direct marketing materials, which in turn promises significant increases in response to mailers. It has effectively been possible in the UK since the first digital presses were installed in the late 1990s, but in reality uptake has been extremely slow, with both printers themselves and client-side marketers appearing reluctant to investigate its potential.