5 Tips for Value Engineering Your Print Projects

Are you familiar with value engineering? It’s a fancy way of saying that you are scrutinizing every aspect of a project, whether a building renovation or a print campaign and making sure that you are maximizing the value of every dollar. Sometimes less expensive options can get the job done without sacrificing quality. Here are five ways you can value engineer your next print project.

1. Bump your color down. If you have a three-color project, consider dropping down to two colors. With the creative use of screen tints, you can often create a similar look for a lower cost. If you have been printing simple documents (such as forms) in two colors, consider dropping back to black ink only.
2. Bump your color up. This might seem counter-intuitive, but if you have a three-color project, it is often more cost-effective to bump to four colors because our press is already set up and running other four-color jobs. If we can include your job in a gang run, you can often save even more.
3. Measure twice, cut once. This old adage applies to printing, too. Doublecheck your art files and proofread carefully. You can avoid many service charges by making sure you’ve prepared your artwork correctly and caught every typo.
4. Clean up messy lists. List cleansing is not exactly exciting, but it can reduce your costs dramatically. With a clean list, you aren’t sending mailers to nonexistent addresses or people who don’t live there anymore.
5. Think outside the format. Just because you have always used a brochure for a particular promotion doesn’t mean it’s the only option. Why not experiment with other formats like postcards and see whether you get the same or better response rate? Testing is the key to effective marketing…and saving money.

Looking for ways to value engineer your print projects? We have lots of ideas. Let us help!