Getting Personal with Digital
By John Kaufman
Segment Marketing Manager,
Ricoh Americas Corporation
Understanding the digital game
In the early era of digital printing, the market was primarily focused on short-run applications, taking jobs that were traditionally produced on offset equipment and running them on digital instead. Since then, the market has evolved and matured to where digital printing is no longer simply a solution to replace offset but has become a market of its own. Digital presses have been around for years and it is clear that applications tied to them will give commercial printers more value-added opportunities, expand their product offerings, and increase their margins.
Short Run Color is only a small piece
Static, short-run color has its place in the digital commercial print environment but the future of growth lies in personalized applications like direct mail, one-to-one marketing and point-of-sale documents. The success digital printing has played in delivering customized menus, direct mail coupons and custom signage for major retailers and food chains is well known. Custom pricing and point-of-sale signage has helped in localizing the market and driving sales for many national chains. Web-to-print, workflow management, and digital printing have made it easy for corporations to keep their brand integrity and regulate pricing, while simplifying logistics. Some home improvement chains see great value in monitoring weather patterns across the country. They can adjust their marketing and sales strategies to promote, adjust signage, and quickly move products in to react to local forecasts, Good examples of this involve adjusting signage, displays, and shelving tags based on hurricane, flood, earthquake, drought or any other increment weather pattern in any given territory. Being able to adjust to these situations at this level is one of the keys to driving their success.
Direct mail or relevant campaigning
The traditional way of producing direct mail is rapidly changing. The industry is migrating away from printing on static offset shells and adding names, addresses, and personal salutations. Now industry leaders are moving towards implementing relevant campaigns. A relevant campaign is just that, relevant, meaning the whole printed piece. People are tired of being solicited by the standard direct mail applications and won't bother to read them. They can easily identify the direct mail piece because their name is splashed all over it while using generic information and graphics. These non-relevant offerings will end up in the trash 98% of the time. What marketers have found out is that when they use relevant messaging along with custom graphics, coupons with targeted products, and local store information, the response rates jump. The measured rates jump from 2% with the standard offset shells to 30% and higher using full digital printing, relevant graphics and information. Transitioning from static direct mail, to relevant campaigning seems inevitable thanks to document payback. According to I.T. Strategies this document payback could possibly be 30 times more for each relevant piece.
Keep it simple to start
Usually the problem starts off with biting off more than you can chew. As a commercial printer your reputation is based on producing work and getting it out the door. Starting with a simple VDP (variable data printing) job will allow you to easily manage the job and minimize the pitfalls. Once you have a few jobs under your belt, you will know what to expect and can accurately price a full-blown, highly-personalized production package. Print industry consultants advise that starting with smaller projects is a key to long-term success. Still these smaller projects can be a challenge for many shops that may not have the software, print engine or expertise to manage the job. Don't worry, Ricoh and our experienced partners can help you overcome these challenges.
A great way to get into the VDP game is to use a stand-alone product like PrintShop Mail. This software can do all the basics and much more, including importing your background designs in a PDF or EPS format, merging them with your database, applying business rules and printing. It is a terrific tool for doing promotional materials and it doesn't take years of training to use. It is a powerful tool that allows you to vary text, graphics, barcodes and layouts based upon your data. For many commercial printers looking to enter the digital market, PrintShop Mail provides everything necessary for offering VDP services.
After you have done a few laps
When you are looking to provide more advanced variable data services along with VDP, such as electronic image generation for email and archived or automated document management and distribution, then PlanetPress from Objectif Lune is your answer. Commercial printers looking to add value to their services should investigate doing this type of work. PlanetPress Suite is a modular system of design stations and servers that a Ricoh PPBG Systems Engineer can help configure to meet these more sophisticated enterprise needs. Both PrintShop Mail and PlanetPress are extremely efficient engines. Their ability to cache the print resources and merge variable data on Ricoh printers means faster printing, smaller files and more efficient use of your network.
Partnering with Ricoh
Ricoh Production Printing Business Group is unique to the industry, in that we have dedicated a Systems Engineer for every 2 Production Specialists. This gives us the ability and focus that we believe is critical in selecting and configuring the right solution, and in helping you to get up and running. These are senior, experienced, technical people who are driven to make sure that Ricoh-based solutions meet your needs. This integration of Ricoh printers, Objectif Lune software and your infrastructure is what makes Ricoh-based solutions stand out and drive results.
John Kaufman,
Segment Marketing Manager,
Ricoh Americas Corp.
An expert in production printing environments and solutions, John Kaufman is responsible for Graphic Arts marketing for Ricoh Americas’ Production Printing Business Group. He brings 20 years digital product solutions, application development and industry marketing experience to this assignment. John can be reached at john.kaufman@ricoh-usa.com or at 815-210-8815. |
