The most lucrative way of advertising your company’s products or services are through postcards. They not only conveniently reach your perspective customers but they are considered cost effective as well.

But the essence of any promotional campaign is the reach and the penetration level to the targeted segment of the market. The quality of the printed postcards plays a very important role in that. It is needless to mention that quality output depends on the quality inputs and the processing of the inputs. Thus, postcard-printing machine is one of the key factors, which determine quality of the postcard and the success of the campaign as well. You may have selected the best of designs and paper on which the design is going to get printed, but if the printing machine is not capable of printing high-resolution graphics then the end result may lead to disappointment.

Offset presses were used in the past when printing postcards but nowadays more and more printing companies use digital presses. They like the flexibility and options that the machines provide and the output is of the highest quality. From the many design templates to the ability of merging your mailing lists with the design are just two of the primary benefits when using a digital press.

Today, there are quite a few digital printer manufacturers who offer different features and attachments in their digital presses. Global leaders like hp, Canon, or Kodak produce machines capable of delivering high-quality prints. These machines have sophisticated systems for paper transfer and printing. The entire operations are controlled electronically via a control panel.

Gloss, matte and pearl finishes are used to print postcards and these come in a variety of thickness too. Most machines can print A3-sized paper. 4000 sheets of A4 sized paper can be printed in an hour using four different colors. Black and white printouts use A4 sheets also and the quantity per hour is 16000 copies.

You can download your postcard design directly from the Internet and it can be seen on the monitor located in the control panel. The print jobs can be prioritized by placing the jobs in queue and based on priority.

If you are looking for a quick turnaround time when it comes to printing your postcards, some printing machines can print on both sides of the postcards. The most powerful of all printing features is the variable data. They have the ability to create customized and unique postcards. For this reason, digital printing is overtaking the marketplace when it comes to postcard printing.

After the printing is done, the printed sheet is given the final shape of postcard by cutting and trimming. However, it may be sent to other operations like UV varnishing, embossing, and leafing in case special effects are needed. Nevertheless, digital printing is recommended for short-run jobs and having requirement for variable data printing, but for long run jobs offset printing is still preferred.