Successful business owners know that understanding their customers is key to meeting their needs and desires through products and services and ultimately increasing sales. One conundrum many companies have faced is how to market the same product or service to several market segments while maintaining cost efficiency. Enter short-run printing.Short run printing allows your printed pieces to be personalized for different market segments, and taking advantage of this technology can dramatically increase your return on investment from any marketing campaign.

Today's precision marketing techniques call for highly targeted printing. Where short run printing was once cost-prohibitive, state-of-the-art digital printing technology has made short run printing affordable for even small businesses while maintaining a high level of professional quality. The payoff is the ability to economically print different marketing materials for the same basic campaign, each targeting a specific market segment.

To understand the advantages of this, consider a company that sells laptop computers. In our example, this company wants to promote a specific laptop — we'll call it the SmartSpeed 2050 — to college students and parents of college students. They design a postcard espousing the benefits of the computer, one of which is the ability to stream video and audio at high speeds. They know that the students will appreciate this feature, because they can watch videos and listen to music without waiting for downloads. Parents of students will appreciate this feature because their children can stream videos back home via a live connection and thus stay in touch. If they were simply marketing to the parents, they would include the headline, "Even though they're away, you can still stay in their lives," and an image of a student on a computer screen talking with his or her parents. For the students, they want a headline that reads, "The fastest movies and song downloads in the dorm," with an image of a student rocking out in front of his or her computer.

The company now has the same promotion to market to two very different segments; and short run printing makes it affordable to print two very different postcards. In our scenario parents will receive the postcards with the "parent" headline and image while students will receive the postcards with the "student" headline and image. All other test and design elements will remain the same. In this manner, the company is able to hit two segments and save money on printing and design costs at the same time; and you should be able to see by now what a powerful tool short run printing can be!

Not all printing companies are alike, so make sure you choose wisely when considering your short run printing. One good choice that revolutionized the online printing industry with short run printing capabilities is PsPrint. Personalizing printed pieces for different market segments means that each recipient's needs and desires are met; and is proven to increase sales. Take advantage of this technology when planning your next marketing campaign, and you'll increase sales too.