Plavidian760-666-3130Print and mail production in Vista, California.

Campaign mail printing

Campaign Mail Printing & Mailing

Plavidian handles campaign mail printing and mailing for candidates, consultants, PACs, party committees and advocacy organizations throughout California and nationwide. At our plant in Vista, voter data, variable printing, USPS preparation, mail tracking and optional piece-level camera verification run through one production workflow.

What we produce

  • Political postcards and mailers, 4x6 through 6.5x12
  • GOTV, persuasion and contrast mail
  • Slate mailers, palm cards and door hangers
  • Fundraising letters with reply envelopes
  • Yard signs and banners
  • Since 2008Producing print and mail in Vista, California
  • USPS Full-ServiceCertified Mail Service Provider
  • Piece-level verificationCamera-read add-on, not spot-checked
  • AAPC memberAmerican Association of Political Consultants
  • Vista ChamberChamber of Commerce member

Voter data

From the file you already have

Send the voter export as it came out of your data vendor. We handle CASS standardization, NCOA, deduplication and householding, then segment by district, precinct, party, turnout score or whatever field your targeting is built on. If ten lists need ten different versions, that is a production instruction, not a separate job.

Variable production

Different voters, different pieces

Names, districts, polling places, ask strings and entire creative versions vary piece by piece off your data. Every variable field is a column in the file you sent, so a late version change is made in the data, with no reprint.

Folding line running printed sheets at the Plavidian production facility in Vista, California
Folding line, Vista. Campaign mail is produced and finished in one building.

Verification

The right piece to the right voter

With the camera verification add-on on the job, cameras read every finished piece and match it against the record it was built from. Mismatches divert before they reach the tray, and the reprint is tracked back to the record it belongs to. That is what makes a merge-purge error recoverable instead of discovered by a candidate holding the wrong mailer.

Camera verification station reading printed pieces against production records
Camera verification: every finished piece read and matched to its record.

USPS preparation

Full-Service, eInduction, entry

We prepare to Full-Service standards, produce the postage statements and pallet placards, and enter at the facility that serves your delivery window. Where destination entry shortens the timeline for a district, we use it.

Deadlines

Election dates do not move

We schedule campaign mail backward from the in-home date. Tell us when it has to land and we work back through USPS entry, production, proof approval and data prep to the date the file has to be final.

What campaigns order

Campaign formats, and what each one is actually for

Political postcards
4x6 and 5x7 for tight budgets and high frequency, 6x9 and 6x11 for a single dominant message, 8.5x11 folded when the mail piece has to carry a record or a chart. Anything over 6.125 inches tall or 11.5 long is a flat, not a letter, and the postage changes with it.
GOTV mail
Short window, high volume, and the in-home date is the whole job. GOTV is usually scheduled backward from the last useful delivery day, which for a Tuesday election means entry timed so pieces land the preceding weekend rather than the Monday.
Persuasion and contrast
Multiple versions by voter segment, often four to twelve creatives against one file. Version is a field; the press does not stop between them.
Slate mailers and palm cards
Shared-cost pieces and hand-out cards. Slate work carries its own disclosure requirements, which are your copy to supply and ours to reproduce exactly.
Fundraising letters
Letter, reply device and BRE. The personalized letter goes into a window envelope, so the donor's address prints on the letter itself, and multipage letters are matched by a computer-controlled inserter that checks the pages match. See reply mail for the BRE mechanics.
Door hangers, yard signs, banners
Non-mail field material produced alongside the mail, so a field program and a mail program come off one purchase order and one schedule.

From the case files

When the strategy changed after ten lists had mailed

A campaign had already mailed ten lists when the targeting strategy changed. The hard part was working out who had already received what, so the next drop did not duplicate or contradict the last. Cascade Priority Data Merge is the record of how that was reconciled: priority order across overlapping lists, suppression of already-mailed records, and a mail file that could be defended afterwards. If your consultant changes strategy mid-program, this is the failure mode that costs money.

Every level of the ballot

School board to congressional

The smallest race we produce for is a school board or water district seat mailing a couple of thousand households; the largest is a congressional campaign across multiple counties. City council, mayor, community college board, county supervisor, judicial, Assembly, State Senate, congressional and ballot measure committees all run through the same production controls. A down-ballot candidate gets the same list processing and the same tracking as a federal race, and the same piece-level camera verification is available to them as an add-on, because the consequence of a bad list is proportionally worse when the margin is 200 votes.

Field materials

Yard signs, door hangers and field material

Yard signs, bumper stickers, door hangers, palm cards, walk pieces, push cards, banners and campaign apparel are produced alongside the mail, on the same purchase order and the same schedule. When signs come from one vendor, shirts from another and mail from a third, the candidate ends up reconciling three delivery dates and three color interpretations of the same logo. We print the mail and the field material to the same artwork, so the door hanger a volunteer carries matches the postcard that arrived that morning.

Starting prices

What this actually costs

Printing only, before postage and before any account pricing. The figures are calculated live from current vendor cost. Postage is quoted separately because it depends on the finished piece and the presort it qualifies for.

ItemQuantityFrom, per pieceFrom, total
Walk pieces, 8.5" x 11"5,000 $0.0733$366.50

Your price depends on size, stock, coating, color sides and finishing. The quote form returns a real figure for your specification.

One connected workflow

Data to proof, one provider

Most mailings cross three or four vendors. Every handoff is a place where a list changes, a piece goes missing, or nobody can say what actually happened. Plavidian runs all six steps itself, with one set of records.

  1. DataCASS, NCOA, dedupe, householding, presort
  2. PrintVariable production, matched inserting
  3. VerifyCamera add-on reads every piece, diverts exceptions
  4. MailFull-Service preparation, eInduction, entry
  5. TrackUSPS scans piece by piece
  6. ProveReconciled report of what mailed

One provider. One connected workflow.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

How quickly can campaign mail be produced?

It depends on quantity, format and how clean the voter file is. We schedule backward from your in-home date: send that date, the approximate quantity and the piece size, and we will tell you when the file and artwork have to be final.

Can Plavidian process voter files?

Yes. Voter exports arrive in every format a data vendor produces. We standardize addresses, run NCOA, deduplicate, household where appropriate and segment on your targeting fields.

Can different voters receive different versions?

Yes. Variable-data production means text, images, ask strings and complete creative versions can change piece by piece based on fields in your file.

Can political mail be tracked?

Yes. Every piece carries an Intelligent Mail barcode, and USPS scans are collected piece by piece through Plavidian Insight so you can see the mailing move rather than assume it did.

Does Plavidian serve campaigns outside San Diego County?

Yes. We produce for campaigns in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties and throughout California. Artwork, voter data and proofs move electronically, so the plant does not need to be near the district.

What is Tag 57?

Tag 57 is the USPS placard identifying a tray or sack as Political Mail so it is visible in postal processing. It is applied at preparation; Political Mail is also declared in the electronic documentation.

Can you mail Political Mail at nonprofit rates?

Not for a candidate. Candidate committees and PACs are not eligible for nonprofit Marketing Mail rates, so their mail goes at regular First-Class or Marketing Mail prices, and the presort you qualify for is what moves the cost. Qualified political committees (national and state party committees, and the national congressional and senatorial campaign committees) can mail at nonprofit prices once USPS authorizes them.

First-Class or Marketing Mail for campaign work?

First-Class is faster and forwards; Marketing Mail is cheaper and does not. For a piece that must land inside a narrow window near election day, the postage difference is usually worth paying. For a persuasion drop six weeks out, it usually is not. We price both against your date.

Do you produce for campaigns outside California?

Yes. We produce for campaigns nationwide from Vista, and mail can be entered at a USPS facility near the district.

Postal terms on this page: Intelligent Mail barcode · Full-Service · eInduction · presort · high-density

Related

Where to look next

Political Mail · Franked Mail · Mailing Guides · Plavidian Insight · Camera Verification · Case Studies

Your mailing should not become a black box

Plavidian keeps data preparation, production, verification, USPS preparation and tracking inside one accountable workflow, and returns a reconciled record of what actually mailed.

Related

Political mail, end to end

Guides and services for campaigns, committees and elected offices, from voter data to delivery.