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What's the Best Digital Press?
December 19, 2007

When it comes to print marketing, marketers are in a terrific position. The advent of digital printing has opened opportunities never before dreamed. As we discussed in a previous post, these are opportunities that level of the playing field between small and mid-sized marketers.  Even if you are printing only small runs, you can do all the things that “big” players do.

• You can divide your longer run into shorter runs, targeted by demographic.
• You can add full-color to your business documents or newsletters inexpensively, even at low volumes. 
• You can personalize your mailings to customer behavior, even if it’s only in a run of 300 mailers.
• You can produce high-end advertising specialties, sending eye-popping gifts and gift boxes with full-color personalized messages and gift boxes crafted for each individual recipient. 

And more. As in all areas of marketing, however, you can only benefit from what you know. For example, did you know that most digital output, regardless of the press on which it’s produced (large production machine like a Xerox iGen3 or a small-footprint copier-printer like the Konica Minolta 8500), has a nearly identical per-page cost? So you might think that choosing a print shop with an $80,000 small-footprint machine will save you money on your digital output over a shop with a $500,000 production press, but that’s not necessarily the case unless it’s running an inkjet press like the RISO HC ComColor 5500, which has the lowest claimed per-page cost of any full-color digital device ($.03 per 8 ½ x 11 page, according to RISO, compared to $.25 per page, which is the rule of thumb for other presses).

But don’t go running for the phone book to find a printer with a RISO press just yet. Production-volume inkjet doesn’t have the same image quality as toner-based printing, and currently, production inkjet presses (whether high-speed direct mail or lower volume production) are offering only 300 dpi compared to 600 dpi to 1200 dpi or more for presses with other imaging systems. So you need to know what brings more value to the document. Full-color or photographic image quality? Or does the extremely low cost of inkjet tip the scales in favor of finally moving to segmented newsletters, targeted by customer demographic?

These are the kinds of technology cost-benefit questions you benefit from asking. As another example, how does the format size of the press (the size of the sheet it can print) impact your costs? If you work with a press with a larger format size, can you get more mailers on a sheet, thereby reducing the overall print run? Or if you once tried photographic-quality output on a dry toner press but were disappointed in the results, what if  there were digital presses with liquid toner offering greater simulation to offset (which there are)? Would it encourage you to give digital printing another try?

Even as a marketer, technology discussions are relevant to you, especially on the digital side. The various imaging technologies, format sizes, and color capabilities have vast implications on your bottom line.

So is learning about the latest digital production technologies on your “to do” list for 2008? If it’s not, it should be. Here are some ideas.

• My personal favorite is “Production Digital Press Specs: At a Glance (Side-by-Side Comparison of Key Product Specifications),” released this fall by The Industry Measure. Here you will find key production specs on nearly 100 of the industry’s top digital presses from more than a dozen manufacturers, spanning everything from short-run commercial to high-volume direct mail, both black-and-white and color.
• Attend printing industry trade shows like On Demand, Print, and Graph Expo. Visit vendor booths. Watch demonstrations. See the equipment in action and the types of applications it can produce. You’d be amazed what you can learn from a single day on the trade show floor. Consider attending the next AIIM / On Demand show held March 3–6 in Boston. From technology and application seminars to on-floor demonstrations, this show is a must-attend for any marketer would can make the trip.
• Invest time in discussing different output technologies and how they impact the costs and flexibility of marketing applications with your printer. Shop around—different printers have different levels of expertise in this area. So get multiple opinions.

Does this take time? Sure, but your bottom line is at stake.

Posted by Heidi Tolliver Nigro on December 19, 2007 | Comments (0)