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Choosing a Printer for 1:1 Applications: Part 1

August 25, 2008 In these posts, we’ve talked a lot about the variety of digital production methods and how they can be used to transform your marketing through today’s powerful just-in-time, personalized, and customized print applications. But how do you choose a printer to produce them?

It’s not like choosing a printer for 5,000 static brochures. In the offset realm, quality, price, and service have largely been equalized by technology. Unless there is something unusual about your print job that requires specialized skill sets, most four-color, production print shops can produce a decent quality job that you will be satisfied with.

When it comes to digital-print-driven marketing applications, however, the selection process can be trickier. 

According to the most recent Industry Measure survey of the commercial printing industry, more than 50% of all commercial printers offer some kind of option for digital output, whether black-and-white or color. That’s some 14,000+ printers. That data is more than a year old (and IM has since closed its doors, so no more updates will be forthcoming), so the percentage likely has gone up.

On one hand, that could—potentially—make things easier. But there is an important distinction here. The ability to output digitally produced pieces is just part of the equation. Producing high-quality digital output and having the expertise and judgment to develop a successful marketing campaign are two different skill sets. Unless you’ve developed your own expertise in personalization, customization, and Web-to-print business models, you’ll need to rely on the printer to help you.

This means that, for most SMBs, just finding a printer with the right output capabilities isn’t enough. Development and execution of today’s more efficient, cost-effective document management strategies is a skill set associated with leading-edge digital print shops. But development and execution of marketing campaigns is a skill set normally associated with ad agencies and marketing companies. To execute today’s sophisticated digitally driven marketing strategies, you need to find a printer who has both.

Just understanding the distinction is an important first step. In my next post, we’ll look at some of the steps to making that happen. 

Have questions? Comments? I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at info@digitalprintingreports.com. For more information on primers for marketers and small businesses on digital, 1:1, Web-to-print, and personalized URL applications, visit Digital Printing Reports. You can also keep up with all of my posts on EBS, The Inspired Economist ("Greening Print Marketing"), and other blog sites by following me on Twitter.

Posted by Heidi Tolliver Nigro on August 25, 2008 | Comments (0)