Gimbel & Associates Blog

There’s little doubt that printing companies are seeking opportunities to take the infrastructure, knowledge, and customer relationships they’ve cultivated over the years and apply them to new market areas. Surveys by organizations such as the Specialty Graphics and Image Association (SGIA) and Printing Industries of America (PIA) indicate such moves are key components of many print company strategic plans. A whole new industry conference, PRINTING United, has emerged to address this convergence of printing categories.

 Commercial printers are looking at packaging, sign printers are interested in textiles, and transactional printers are investigating wideformat (see the Gimbel & Associates blog Wide Format for Transactional Printers? Not as Crazy as it Sounds!).

Printers who create transactional documents rely on established workflows designed to generate millions of variable documents containing sensitive information like billing and payment amounts, purchases, insurance claim information, utility usage, or medical procedures. If that sounds like your business I can’t fault you for thinking your operation isn’t set up for low-volume wide format print applications like banners and signs.

These two print applications seem to have nothing in common. But is that really true?

Though the devices are different, printers produce wide format jobs on digital devices, just like transactional documents. Color and resolution is important in both cases, and both require strenuous quality control processes. Mistakes in each genre are expensive. In the high speed world of transactional documents, errors are

Successful customer events and open houses don’t happen by accident. To realize tangible results you will need alignment throughout your organization on event goals, event strategies, and project planning responsibilities.  Gimbel & Associates' new eBook, "Making Your Event a Success," is an end-to-end guide to plan, market, and execute events. You’ll be able to leverage global best practices to market your event at the local level. This guide provides detailed tactics, timetables, and tips organized in individual sections to help make each event a success.  Download your free copy now.

Mobile technology is revolutionizing entire industries. Sometimes it even creates something new, like ride-sharing services. Uber wouldn’t be possible without mobile phones. The printing business can take advantage of what mobile has to offer as well. Mobile  technology isn’t the only factor causing changes in the printing business, but it creates possibilities for printers to create new billable services and deepen relationships with clients.

Smart phones and tablets enable exciting developments happening in the printing business. Mobile barcodes (QR codes), near-field-communi-cations (NFC), and augmented reality (AR) all take individuals into the digital realm from a point that  starts with a printed document.

These technologies offer far-ranging possibilities. Printers have barely begun exploiting the capabilities and more importantly, to sell the concepts of mobile-enabled print to their customers.

When it comes to variable data, most printers just accept what they get from their customers. But should they attempt to improve on the data to increase campaign effectiveness? We think that is a good way to add value to the customer relationship. Simple data quality processes added to the workflow can make your client’s outbound communications more effective and add billable line items to your invoices.

Forbes says “…transitioning to the cloud has enabled (companies) to better manage industry disruptions, reinvent their business models and fuel massive improvements in the delivery of their services.”

Doesn’t that description sound like the printing industry?

The printing business is transforming. To compete, print service providers must be able to adapt and evolve quickly to meet their client’s needs. Doing business in the cloud gives printers access to the tools and resources necessary to take advantage of new technologies and participate in trends as they develop.

Too many print companies still rely on traditional methods for interacting with their clients. Instead of suggesting creative ways they can help their clients achieve business goals, print companies keep focusing sales conversations on quotes and printed products they can provide. It may seem contrary and uncomfortable, but the best way to sell print may not be initiating a sales call with product pitches. This approach makes print a commodity that any competitor offering a lower price can easily reproduce.

Competition is fierce in the printing business. Nearly every print operation can buy the same equipment and software you use to run your business. Many printing companies offer much the same products and services as local, national, and international competitors. The real differentiator for most printing companies is their people, and a huge problem is looming regarding your staff. Where will your future employees come from?

Informed Delivery Is A Win For Print Service Providers

 The USPS Informed Delivery program continues to gain momentum. As of this writing, the program includes around 13 million subscribers. An impressive 65% of email subscribers check their Informed Delivery emails nearly every day. If you’ve ever run email campaigns, you’re probably aware that achieving a 65% open rate is quite a feat.

If you missed our blog, "From the Other Side of the Desk," then you missed getting your FREE DOWNLOAD of our eBook.

Highly personalized and customized print communications that drive customer engagement have won awards and been featured in highly acclaimed case studies for decades.  Marketers have experienced response and conversion lift when they leverage variable data. This phenomenon has been documented many times.

Why are so few of these campaigns executed? Most direct marketing programs do not leverage the demonstrated power of data. What is it about variable data that keeps marketers from using readily available technology to their advantage?

Successful customer events and open houses don’t happen by accident. To realize tangible results you will need alignment throughout your organization on event goals, event strategies, and project planning responsibilities. You’ll also need a cross-functional team to execute the plan. Everyone (yes every person in your facility) will need to know what you are planning, and your reasons for hosting a customer event. Each employee will have a role before, during, or after the function.