It’s 2016! So what’s happening in digital printing this year? « Back to list
As we enter the New Year, Gary White, CEO of Digitalprinting.co.uk, answers some questions we put to him about the digital printing industry.
What do you print most of / is your most popular product?
We print a lot of stickers and business cards (and I mean a lot) but our fastest growing sector is booklets, particularly saddle stitched booklets. Saddle stitch books work for so many uses e.g. brochures, reports or any magazine style documents because it’s professional looking and importantly very cost effective, irrespective of quantity.
What is the most effective printed item in terms of getting your message across and getting a response?
That depends on your business, your target market and the message you want to communicate. Flyers, leaflets and sticker campaigns are great for getting your brand or product out to large numbers of people quickly. For business-to-business marketing, brochures are our biggest seller and of course roll-up display stands are hugely popular for trade shows/conferences or in store promos. Printed marketing really boils down to delivering the right message (no matter what form your campaign takes) and using the best quality design and print.
What are the biggest myths you’ve heard about print?
A common myth is that print is becoming old fashioned, especially with the growth of digital marketing. The truth is that print continues to grow, especially as digital printing and printed marketing is proven to be an effective marketing tool. It is accepted that people read and engage with print more fully than online, where they tend to scan and move on quickly. Any printed marketing material serves as an important driver for both offline and online interaction.
How do you think attitudes have changed towards print as a marketing method in recent years?
As I said previously, digital printing worldwide is growing year on year. I think the attitude of many marketing professionals has come full circle. Print is being used as much, if not more than ever, often in new creative ways. The truth is print and digital marketing work independently of each other and both have their place in the world today. When the two are combined though in a cross media campaign the results can be fantastic.
What about your green credentials?
Digitalprinting.co.uk takes environmental issues very seriously. We endeavour to use only Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) paper, which comes from environmentally managed forests. Equally as important in our mind is our whole ethos, digital printing is all about cutting out waste. Our advice to our customers is, only order what you need and don’t be taken in by the out-dated notion of buying more than you need because it’s ‘cheaper’. Nearly every business has a store room somewhere full of out of date printed materials. Ordering smaller quantities more often lets you keep your content up to date or even fix the typo you missed first time round!
How do you use print for your own marketing?
We send out sample packs of our products. It’s important for our prospective customers to trust us and to see that we believe in our products, our quality and our service. We often send vouchers, leaflets and booklets out with orders to market our brand to our customers. Actually, just recently we posted a personalised 2016 desk calendar with great monthly deals and offers to all of our customers. It’s early days but it has gone down very well with our customers so far.
How do you convince customers of the power of print?
We are happy to quote facts and figures showing the success rates that printed marketing still enjoys but testimonials and recommendations are more personal and compelling. That’s why we encourage customers to post their experiences and reviews on our website, and we encourage prospective customers to browse and read them for themselves.
What current or future developments in print are you most excited about?
Automation and innovation. Production costs are fairly static but it is the automation of our processes that will deliver real cost savings that we can pass on to our customers. I am glad to say our business needs good people (and we have them) to run effectively and human interaction with our customers is vital to maintaining our quality and service levels. That being said, we need to innovate and automate wherever we can within our business to keep at cutting edge of digital printing.
Three words that convey why people should be using print?
Effective. Adaptable. Tactile.
It’s an exciting time for us and for the digital printing industry. To find out more about what we do or anything we’ve discussed, visit Digitalprinting.co.uk or contact us today.
