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Plavidian

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
Campaign door hangers
Door hangers, order online
  • Since 2008Producing print and mail in Vista, California
  • USPS Full-ServiceCertified Mail Service Provider
  • Piece-level verificationCamera-read add-on for letter-size mail
  • 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.

Verification

The right piece to the right voter

With the camera verification add-on on a letter-size 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 add-on for letter-size mail: 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. The free Mail Date Planner does the same arithmetic from your in-home date, and the Direct Mail Planning Center takes a mailing from list to order.

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.
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. Standard pieces such as yard signs can be ordered online from Print Products, with no account needed.
From the case files

When the strategy changed after ten lists had mailed

A statewide union outreach program 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 on letter-size mail, 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 t-shirts 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.

A roll of Garamendi for Congress labels coming off the label press in Plavidian's Vista shop
Campaign roll labels for a congressional race, printed in our Vista shop alongside the mail.
The same labels on our label press.

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
Campaign postcards, 4" x 6"5,000 $0.0406$203.00
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 these steps in one workflow, with one set of records.

  1. Choose who gets it

    Count households by radius, ZIP, city or district in the Mailing List Builder, or pick carrier routes for EDDM. A list you bring is cleaned with CASS, NCOA and deduplication before anything prints. The Mail Date Planner works the schedule back from the in-home date you want.

    See the Mailing Blueprint
    Mailing Blueprint Free account
    A finished Mailing Blueprint: estimated postage with the planning range, presort tiers and list counts
  2. Printed and addressed in Vista

    Postcards, letters, self-mailers, and booklets, versioned per record, then folded, inserted, tabbed and addressed. Presort, tray and pallet prep and Full-Service electronic documentation follow, then acceptance and drop shipment. Every mailing runs through the same five production steps, written down in the Plavidian Standard.

    How mail is prepared: the Plavidian Standard
    Print File Check No sign-in
    Print File Check report on the USPS postcard layout template: grade B, one warning for RGB color, the passed checks listed
  3. Checked as it runs

    With Plavidian Sentry, an add-on for letter-size mail, a camera reads each piece as it runs and reconciles it to your list; pieces that fail are diverted for reprint. The Assurance Report documents what was produced and presented to USPS.

    How camera verification works
    Assurance Report, sample
    Campaign Mail Assurance Report for a sample job: camera verification counts, read rate and verified rate, then the list processing reconciliation
  4. See where your mail is

    Plavidian Insight is included with every addressed mailing: USPS scan events, a day-by-day delivery curve and delivery maps. The postage statement and the Insight tracking report come with the job. EDDM pieces carry no barcode, so EDDM jobs get the Assurance Report as proof of delivery to USPS.

    See Plavidian Insight
    Insight delivery tracking Included
    Plavidian Insight: delivery counts and a map of delivered pieces
  5. See who responded

    Plavidian Response, an add-on for addressed postcards, self-mailers and flats, puts a short web address and QR code on each piece and counts visits, scans and form answers by day and ZIP on the job.

    See Plavidian Response
    Response Page builder Add-on
    The Response Page builder in a Plavidian account: the page blocks in order, a layout picker, the look of the page, and a live preview for one recipient

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, when it is addressed. Every addressed piece carries an Intelligent Mail barcode, and USPS scans are collected piece by piece through Plavidian Insight, included with every addressed mailing, so you can see the mailing move rather than assume it did. EDDM pieces carry no barcode; an EDDM job gets the Assurance Report as proof it was delivered to USPS.

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. 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.

Election dates do not move

Send the in-home date, the approximate quantity and the piece size, and we will tell you when the file and artwork have to be final.

Related

Political mail, end to end

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