Frequently Asked Questions

We get asked this a lot and it really depends….Do you open a lot of spam email or just hit delete?  Do you opt-out or unsubscribe to unwanted emails?  It’s really not an either-or where we are concerned but we do believe the printed piece is the first point of entry for opening the eyes of the consumer.  But we’ll let the statistics speak for themselves…  

1. On average, Americans receive 605 emails and 16.8 pieces of mail every week.
2. For roughly every 36 emails you receive on average, you get 1 piece of mail in your mailbox.
3. The average lifespan of an email is 17 seconds, compared to direct mail’s average lifespan of 17 days.
4. 73% of American consumers say they prefer being contacted by brands via direct mail because they can read it whenever they want.

‍The Bottom Line – Direct mail has a strong presence. It gets noticed, and allows for greater control by the recipient. This, in turn, makes it an effective way of reaching a large group of people.

1. 58% of the mail American households receive is marketing mail.
2. 59% of US respondents say they enjoy getting mail from brands about new products.
3. 60% of catalog recipients visit the website of the company that mailed them the catalog.
4. Up to 90% of direct mail gets opened, compared to only 20-30% of emails.
5. Prospects are 15% more likely to respond to an oversized mail piece if they have never done business with you.
6. Per USPS, 98% of people check their mail daily and Americans spend upwards of 30 minutes with their mail on a single occasion.
7. 68% of marketing respondents said combining digital and direct mail increased website visits.
8. 60% of marketing respondents said combining digital and direct mail increased ROI.

Each project is different for each client so it really depends on what you’re looking for in terms of look and feel and some of the common methods of binding books and other multi-page documents include:

Perfect binding: Gluing the outside edges of the pages together to create a flat edge.

Saddle-stitch binding: Using staples along the folds of the pages to bind them together.

Spiral binding: Wires in a spiral form that get threaded through punched holes along the binding edge of the papers. Allows the document to lay open flatly and comes in many different sizes.

Plastic comb binding: Similar to spiral binding but using a tubular plastic piece with teeth that fit through rectangular holes punched into the binding edge and can accommodate many different sizes.

Three-ring binding: Holes are punched into the pages and fitted into a binder.  There are many different options to label and tab your binder and your binder can be customized as well.

Case binding: Sewing the pages together and then attaching them to a hard cover.

The vast growth of digital printing technology has brought a number of technical advancements, exciting new features and more options to today’s commercial printing. It’s also brought some confusion. An understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of digital printing and how those compare to traditional offset printing is critical in making the right choice in terms of price and end result. 

Offset printing is the most common high volume commercial printing technology. With offset printing, the desired print image is burned onto a plate and is then transferred (or offset) from the plate to a rubber blanket, and then to the printing surface. The process is based on the repulsion of oil and water. The image to be printed gets ink from ink rollers, while the non-printing area attracts a film of water, keeping the non-printing areas ink-free. Digital printing eliminates many of the mechanical steps required for conventional printing, including making films and color proofs, manually stripping the pieces together and making plates.

Advantages of digital printing include:

• Shorter turnaround. 
• Every print is the same. More accurate counts, less waste and fewer variations.
• Cheaper low volume printing. While the unit cost of each piece may be higher than with offset printing, when setup costs are included digital printing provides lower per unit costs for very small print runs.
• Variable Data Printing is a form of customizable digital printing. Using information from a database or external file, text and graphics can be changed on each piece without stopping or slowing down the press. 

But, there are also many advantages to offset printing:

• High image quality
• Works on a wide range of printing surfaces including paper, wood, cloth, metal, leather, rough paper and plastic.
• The unit cost goes down as the quantity goes up.
• Quality and cost-effectiveness in high volume jobs. While today’s digital presses are close to the cost/benefit ratio of offset for high quality work, they are not yet able to compete with the volume an offset press can produce.
• Many modern offset presses use computer-to-plate systems as opposed to the older computer-to-film work flows, further increasing quality

We offer both offset and digital printing services at our production house at 811 W Evergreen Ave. Stop by anytime and talk to one of our experienced reps as to what paper, color and print process makes the most sense for you project.

The experts at BUCKAZ want your product to come out exactly the way you want it and will be there every step of the way to provide you the right advice on your printed materials.

The two main factors to consider are:

1.) Quantity

2.) Deadlines

Digital: More cost-effective for shorter runs, turnaround time is typically faster, ability to use variable data with lower minimum requirements.

Offset: More common and more cost-effective for larger runs, and as the volume goes up the price goes down where digital is closing the gap on the cost/benefit ration it’s not there just yet but don’t count digital out.  Offset has higher printing quality with more ink choices available and can be used to match exact colors.  Can exceed sheet size dimensions of 13” x 19” where digital can’t go.

The most common card stocks used for postcards are:

100# cover stock coated on both sides: The most popular postcard stock.

100# cover stock coated on one side: Well suited to mailing.

12 pt cover stock coated on both sides: a premium paper with a high luster finish.

Great question! We are a full-service shop and offer a wide range of products and services.  From commercial print, direct mail, graphic design and layout, promotional products, website development and more, BUCKAZ helps you communicate both internally and externally with any type of printed materials.  Our goal is to make you look good while providing consultation and expertise for your project.

That’s not a problem.  Saddle up with our team of highly skilled graphic designers that will assist to help turn your vision into a reality and will work closely with you to produce your materials, no matter what it is.

So, great question and one that comes up a lot.  In short, printers and monitors will produce colors in different ways.  A monitor will use the RGB (red, green, blue) color model, which usually supports a wider spectrum of colors. Printers use the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) color model, which can reproduce most—but not all—of the colors in the RGB color model. Depending on the equipment used, CMYK generally matches 85–90% of the colors in the RGB model.  When a color is selected from the RGB model that is out of the range of the CMYK model, the application chooses what it thinks is the closest color that will match. Programs like Adobe Photoshop will allow you to choose which color will be replaced. Others may not, and we will use the CMYK model.

Variable data printing or more widely known as VDP is technology for printing documents so that each piece is personalized to the specific recipient like an invoice or statement or another piece of direct mail.  This means personalizing a name and address. But for real impact, many projects include unique graphics and content that speaks directly to the person receiving the product.