Graphic Arts Online: Printing’s Role in a Multichannel Marketing World

As print media evolves to a new, supporting role for other media, doors open for printers who can help clients make the change.

Widely reported declines in print shipments tell the story: offset lithography, the printing industry's dominant reproduction method, seems poised to be toppled. E-mail, Websites, streaming video and e-books—served up under powerful search engines—are among suitors vying for the communication duties once filled by print, with ink on paper increasingly relegated to a supporting role.

If a printer's job is to help clients accomplish their communication goals, then it is clear the printing industry must continue to broaden its portfolio of services. It's no longer sufficient to be merely efficient. The last of the proverbial buggy whip factories may have been a lean operation, but that didn't assure survival.

To thrive, printing firms must embrace the new options available when marketing messages and relevant content are delivered simultaneously across multiple channels of communication. As managers of their clients' graphic assets, they must take up the work of creating rich media—seizing the business opportunity in delivering interactive documents spawned from traditional print.

The size, resilience and ingenuity of the U.S. printing industry provides basis for optimism. Forward-thinking printers know that ink on paper will remain part of the media mix so long as it can enhance the emerging non-print alternatives. Trends show the wisdom of joining forces with online advertising and marketing. Zenith Optimedia says North American advertising expenditures plummeted 12.7% in 2009; a 2.4% decline is expected this year. Online advertising will grow 12% in each of the next three years.

What's disappearing is not the need for print, but the traditional rationale for using it. Ink on paper was once the only way to disseminate information on a mass scale; cost and immediacy were secondary concerns. Today, Internet search engines provide instant access to a plethora of free, constantly updated data sources.

Print cannot be faster or cheaper than the digital competition, so it's high time to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Ink on paper is a long-lasting, high-quality communication vehicle that provides tangible proof of a company's stature and ambitions; e-mail and Websites have a ridiculously low cost of entry that permits spammers and rip-off artists to circulate undetected alongside legitimate businesses and organizations. Given this contrast, advertisers, marketers, publishers and other traditional clients still need print; what's luring them away is the interactive capability of the digital alternatives.

Fortunately, a new approach is emerging that can blend the accessibility of print with the immediacy of digital media. Database-driven mini-catalogs, zero-inventory book publishing, massively versioned direct mail campaigns and augmented reality packaging are bellwethers of print's ongoing transformation from a static process into a reactive, flexible communications platform.

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More personal direct mail and transpromo

“Shotgun” mass mailing printed promotions to enormous prospect lists deliver miniscule response rates of 3% or less. While most direct marketing still relies on preprinted litho “shells” addressed at a mailing house, sales of high-value items (credit cards, insurance policies, luxury cars) is increasingly enhanced by digital technology. A 2009 InfoTrends study determined that multichannel marketing campaigns increased response to 35%, a number that rose to 50% when campaigns were both multichannel and personalized.

Instead of dropping black toner imprints onto static litho backgrounds, a new influx of high-speed inkjet webs produce multiple versions of a given campaign with graphics and layout customized on the fly for various categories of recipients.

“Segmentation is becoming a huge part of our business,” says Pat O'Brien, CMO at mailing printer Direct Group, Swedesboro, NJ. “People are spending a lot more money on the front end, targeting their customers and tracking their responses.” Offering both direct mail and transactional print services, Direct Group runs two new Océ JetStream 2200 color inkjet web presses plus a fleet of continuous forms toner devices. “We used to get jobs with 10 million pieces built around one or two sales offers,” says O'Brien. More common now, he says, is a one million run of 50 or 75 versions, each with different offers.