Margie Dana

Here Come the Progressive Printers

There's a whole lotta shakin going on in the printing industry, have you noticed? Companies are changing in significant ways, and it's all good news for customers.

Printers are shedding their printing label, literally and figuratively. Some are, indeed, changing their corporate names. Out goes "printing" and in come terms like marketing, cross media, communications, and print solutions.

Today's progressive printers have seen the writing on the wall: print customers can buy ink-on-paper anywhere: across the country, overseas, and over the 'net. Printing quality is pretty darned good just about anywhere you go. Commercial printers can turn around your job in a few days. (It's not like they have a choice.) Prices are fairly competitive, too, especially within a specific geographic region.

So how can print companies do more, offer more, and deliver more than just…printing? By acquiring and/or leveraging other capabilities, ones that today's corporate customer really needs (and will pay more for).

There are a few ways in which progressive printers are building their businesses. Some are adding ancillary services, like mailing, fulfillment, promotional items, and web site design and development. Some are taking advantage of their on-staff IT expertise. These firms are adding muscle in database management, so that they can help their customers leverage their corporate databases effectively, efficiently and creatively when communicating with their own prospects and customers.

Every commercial printer, it seems, is getting into digital printing, either by investing in the latest equipment or by forming alliances with a seasoned digital printer. Bravo!

You'll start to see more firms offering web-to-print solutions, personalized URLs, customized printing on-the-fly, and media services such as CD ROM creation and duplication.

Yes, it's a new wave of printers out there. Printers getting into mailing. Mail firms getting into printing. Capabilities expanding. Marketing solutions being offered by commercial printers. Printers will still put ink-on-paper. But the actual printing is moving to the background. And out in front comes these other, more solutions-oriented capabilities.

Start seeing printing in a new light. Watch for your printers to expand their offerings significantly - if they haven't already.

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