VDP Starter Checklist

Ready to launch your first Variable Data Printing campaign but not sure where to start? You’re not alone. VDP sounds technical, but the process is straightforward. What matters is having a clear roadmap from idea to execution. That’s what this checklist is for.

Variable Data Printing doesn’t require advanced technical knowledge or complex systems. It requires organisation, clarity, and a partner who handles the complexity so you don’t have to. Print Lord has guided hundreds of businesses through this process. We’ve learned what works, what trips people up, and how to make VDP feel achievable, not overwhelming.

Here’s your step-by-step VDP starter checklist.

Step 1: Prepare Your Data

Your data is the foundation of everything. No clean data, no successful campaign. It’s that simple.

Start by gathering your recipient list. Names, addresses, email addresses, whatever contact information you have. Then identify your personalisation fields. What do you want to vary from piece to piece?

For a direct mail campaign, that might be names, addresses, personalised offers based on customer segment, or previous purchase history. For an event, it’s attendee names, company affiliations, session assignments. For a reactivation campaign, it’s customer names and references to their previous purchases.

Once you’ve identified what you want to personalise, audit your data for accuracy. Misspelled names, wrong addresses, missing information, duplicates. Clean data is essential. A customer’s name misspelled is worse than no personalisation at all. It signals carelessness, not care.

Print Lord can help you structure and clean your data. We’ve done this thousands of times. We know what works, what causes problems, and how to prepare your list for flawless printing. Don’t try to skip this step. Data quality determines outcome quality.

Step 2: Define Your Design Template

Now that you have clean data, you need a design template showing where that data goes.

This is where you work with a designer, or with Print Lord’s design guidance. Your template shows:

Where customer names appear. Where personalised addresses go. Where unique codes or QR codes sit. Where personalised offers or messages are placed. Everything needs a specific location on the template.

Your designer creates a beautiful, professional template. Then they show us, Print Lord, exactly where the variable elements belong. We integrate your data into those locations. Every piece prints unique.

This sounds complex, but it’s not. Your designer designs. You approve. Print Lord handles the technical integration. Convenience and flexibility. That’s the promise.

If you don’t have a designer, Print Lord can guide you. We’ve worked with hundreds of templates. We know what works visually, what prints cleanly, what creates impact.

Step 3: Set Up Tracking

What gets measured gets optimised. If you’re not tracking response, you’re flying blind.

Tracking mechanisms transform your print campaign from a guessing game into measurable marketing. Choose your approach:

Unique Voucher Codes. Each printed piece carries a different code. When customers redeem, you know exactly who responded, when, and what they purchased. Simple, effective, proven.

Personalised QR Codes. Every piece has a unique QR code linking to a personalised landing page or tracking URL. Scan the code, and your analytics capture exactly which piece was scanned, by whom, and what they did next. Print meets digital seamlessly.

Unique Landing Page URLs. Each mailer directs to a unique URL. printlord.co.uk/offer/jim-2026 versus printlord.co.uk/offer/sarah-2026. Your analytics identify which recipient visited which URL.

Dedicated Phone Numbers or Extensions. For some campaigns, a unique phone number or extension per mailer segment works. Customers call, you ask which mailer brought them in, you track response.

Choose whichever method fits your campaign and your tracking infrastructure. Print Lord can help you decide. We’ve executed all of these approaches. We know what works best for different situations.

Step 4: Create Your Offer or Message

Personalisation is powerful, but only if you’ve got something valuable to say.

What’s the value proposition of your campaign? Are you offering a discount? A free consultation? Inviting them to an event? Saying thank you for their loyalty? Asking them to come back?

Be clear. Be specific. Make the offer or message so compelling that recipients act on it.

And here’s the bit that separates good campaigns from great ones: tailor your offer or message to your audience segments. Your VIP customers might receive an exclusive loyalty offer. Your lapsed customers might receive a win-back offer. Your prospects might receive an educational resource or consultation offer. Different segments, different messages, same campaign.

VDP lets you personalise the offer itself. That’s where response rates climb.

Step 5: Plan Your Follow-Up

One mailer is not a campaign. A campaign is a sequence.

What happens after your mailer arrives? Do you follow up with an email? A phone call? A second mailer to non-responders? Do you retarget with digital ads to people who scanned your QR code but didn’t convert?

Think about the full customer journey. Initial mailer arrives. Some people respond immediately. Some need a nudge. Some need multiple touches. Plan for all of them.

The most successful print campaigns Print Lord executes aren’t single mailers, they’re sequences. Initial touch, follow-up touch, retargeting sequence, final push. Each one personalised based on previous response.

You don’t need to execute the entire sequence before you launch. But you should plan for it. Knowing what comes next shapes how you design the initial piece.

Step 6: Set Success Metrics

How will you measure success? Define this before you launch, not after.

Success metrics depend on your goal. If you’re running a customer reactivation campaign, your metric might be redemption rate or repeat purchase rate. If you’re running a lead generation campaign, it might be qualified lead count or cost per lead. If you’re running a loyalty campaign, it might be customer retention rate or loyalty programme sign-up rate.

Be specific. “We want response” is vague. “We want 5% redemption rate” is specific and measurable.

Print Lord can help you set realistic targets based on similar campaigns we’ve executed. We know what good looks like in different industries and for different campaign types. We can guide you toward ambitious but achievable goals.

Step 7: Brief Print Lord

Once you’ve completed steps one through six, you’re ready to brief Print Lord.

You provide:

Your clean data list with personalisation fields. Your design template or brief (we can design if needed). Your tracking mechanism preference. Your offer or message. Your success metrics.

Then Print Lord takes over. We handle the technical complexity. We integrate your data into the template. We set up tracking infrastructure. We proof every variation to ensure accuracy. We manage production. We deliver your personalised mailers, ready to send.

Convenience and Flexibility. We guide you through the process. We handle the complexity. Your job is to provide the data and vision. Our job is to make it real.

This is where Print Lord wins. This is the work that click-to-basket portals can’t automate. This is where thinking beats templates.

Why This Checklist Matters

Variable Data Printing isn’t complicated. But it does require planning. Businesses that skip steps one through six often struggle. Data is messy. Design isn’t clear. Tracking isn’t set up. They launch and then realise they can’t measure response or they discover too late that their data had errors.

This checklist prevents that. It’s a roadmap. Follow it, and you launch confident, informed, and ready to execute.

Getting Started

You don’t need to be perfect before you brief Print Lord. You don’t need to understand every technical detail. You just need to work through this checklist, gather your information, and get clear on your goal.

Then Print Lord handles the rest.

If you get stuck on any step, reach out. We’ve guided businesses through this process hundreds of times. We know where people typically struggle. We know how to make it simple.

Your first VDP campaign is achievable. It’s within reach. It’s the beginning of measurable, personalised, optimisable print marketing.

Download this checklist. Work through it. Get your data and your vision clear. Then get in touch with Print Lord.

We’ll take it from there.

Because if you have the data, we can do anything.

Ready to launch your VDP campaign? Let’s do this.

Print Lord. At your service. On brand. On time.