Out my window
Despite the apparent growth of electronic communication, people still want paper, and that’s good news for the entire graphic arts industry. The public just isn’t as ready to accept e-mails or web downloads for most “transactional” communications. No, we want these crucial, if mundane, records of purchases, investments, and bank transactions on paper.
InfoTrends, a market research and consulting firm for the digital imaging and document production industry, pointed out this January that fewer than half of respondents to their survey plan to pay bills online. Most people prefer paper-based transactions, and the main reason is security.
Consumers also “continue to have a high preference for [paper-based] direct mail over other forms of direct marketing,” InfoTrends found. “Sixty-one percent of consumers surveyed stated a preference for direct mail, which is nearly triple the number that preferred receiving ads via e-mail.”
Last January, Trendwatch Graphic Arts — now known as The Industry Measure — predicted “sharp” growth in variable printing. They pointed out that the number of graphic arts firms in North America that reported producing “some sort of VDP” over the past 12 months had risen from 28 percent in 2005 to 37 percent in 2006, and they felt this was a trend that would continue.
Meanwhile, technology that allows businesses to target and personalize communications continues to become more powerful and accessible, and marketing companies are finding interesting new uses for them. For instance, car dealerships in the U.S. and Europe, as well as major software vendors, are combining colour variable output technology with the flexibility of the Web: salespeople can log into a “brochure-builder” site, select a template, images and text, edit the content to suit their own needs, upload a small database of recipients, add their own contact information, and have the resulting customized, individualized brochure printed in exactly the quantity they need by a qualified supplier. Another enterprising marketer in the U.S. has set up deals with retailers and printers across the country, which allow consumers to upload their digital photos, build an album from templates through an Internet browser, then have them printed in whatever quantity they choose. The website directs the print job to the closest printer, and the output gets delivered in 24 to 48 hours to whatever retail outlet the customer chooses.
If that sounds like the web is honing in on the printer’s territory again, remember that the result is ink (or maybe toner) on paper.
The point is, printers are probably the best-placed people to realize these new uses of communications technology. So if you’re not into variable printing today, don’t wait much longer.
