2011...a Summer to Remember

July and August are supposed to be fairly slow months for printers and related industries…at least that seems to be the “old” normal. People are on vacation, kids are out of school and since I remember, there was just a little more relaxation associated with those summer months. So as I read an article in WhatTheyThink,  (premiere Print industry news and analysis) by Dr. Joe Webb, he  talked about the changing climate in the industry, and that the summer of 2011 would be a great year to keep our nose to the grindstone and figure out our future strategy. As a matter of fact, he predicted that we will all remember the summer of 2011 in 5 years for either doing something or not doing something when we look back and measure our success in 2016. I’ll come back to this point later, but the reason I’m writing this is to demonstrate how we are learning to integrate new tools into big projects.

So, we do a lot of work for a good sized retirement community in Ohio, and I’ve known for a while that they were going to go through a major re-branding. Well, it finally started to happen this summer. Actually, it was a very subtle re-branding, but they did put all of their divisions under the same name, so the look and feel was consistent throughout the whole company, using just color variations to differentiate the different divisions. At first I didn’t think it was to big a deal, but as I developed a spreadsheet on all the different communities, facilities and so on,  I realized this was a big project. There were over 15 different places (versions as we call them), each with an average of 12 to 15 products, ranging from over 200 different Business Cards (we did all the typesetting) to all sized envelopes to marketing sheets & letterheads. And to make things interesting, they were all printed in 3 or 4 very specific PMS colors.

I don’t want to be boring with technical details, but (just for a saecond) lets look a little deeper at a single product……9 x 12 envelopes, 15 different versions, some 3 colors, some 4 colors, and the colors change throughout. In all, there were a total of 5 different PMS colors used; to keep the colors consistant, we had a 5lb can of each color pre-made. Then we dicided to run everything on the 5 color press. Being on a 5 color, we were able to ink up 5 towers and just use the towers we needed for that specific product, then switch to a different mix when required. 

As stated earlier, we made a spread sheet of all the products and shared it with everybody involved in the sales, production and delivery on Google Docs. Between the spread sheet and our own order system (Printsmith), that allowed everybody involved to look at the project as a whole, or dig down to any specific detail, especially the guys who had to package and deliver everything…it went to so many different people and locations. And the UPS on-line system, along with our own systems delivery function was ultra cool in being able to send out delivery notices prior to the customer receiving them with a tracking number.

Snapshot of a On-Line catalog

Our next step is to build all of these products into an on-line catalog designed specifically for this customer. We will orginize it by division and then by product. If they pickout a 6 x 9 envelope, there will be a drop down menu to pick out the facility that will automatically populate all the fields with the correct information for that facility. They can then look at a proof and place the order and pick out their preference of delivery and payment. These systems do a lot and will become more and more common, especially for features like reviewing order history for diffrent products or replacing a closet full of inventory with just-in-time ordering.

So really, this job was not uncommon at all. But going back to the point at the begining of the story, 2011 is the time to view jobs like this a little differently. The point is not the technical details (boring!), but the  point is that we have to understand our customers needs like never before: eliminate as many un-nessesary customers touchs as possible, understand that everybody is doing more with less, so getting printed or marketing material correctly and at a fair price is Key. This is the new reality, and you know what…it’s not going away, its just coming at us stronger and faster every day.

I read an article the other day entitled “Are you ready for the Post-Recession printing industry?” and it made me think about what’s down the road. Actually, if you own a printing company you probably think a lot about what’s down the road. And while I don’t have an answer, I know things are changing quickly. Here are a few thoughts and ideas  about our changing industry.

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There seem to be people that still believe that things will return to “Normal”…in the printing industry. I think we are in the “New Normal” right now for printers (that doesn’t mean we’re not in an economic downturn, because we are; the printing industry just is’nt going back to where it was). The digital revolution has had and continues to have a huge effect on our industry, and if you embrace it (and have some guts), there’s some oppurtunities out there. I was reading a First Research industry profile on The Commercial Printing industry and this fact really stood out. “Historically, 40% of books and almost 60% of magazines were printed but not purchased. Excess copies are collected, shredded and land-filled”.   In the printing industry, it has always been true that if you order a higher quantity, your per unit cost will go down. That makes Print on Demand make more sense than ever; with digital printing platforms today, you can print just what you need (even add customization), and come back for another small quantity when you need more. This is having a huge effect on printers that have always survived on those long runs.

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Printing is transitioning to a service business. Commercial Printing has traditionally been a manufacturing industry, and while it maintains its manufacturing focus, it seems to be evolving into a service business. We are subject to shorter print runs, and customers are asking for more changes and edits later in the process and then faster turnarounds. All the growth in our industry is coming from the digital sector, and that growth seems to come from responding to customer’s changing needs. We all need to recognize this fact and act accordingly, its about listening to our customers needs and changing our business model to fit.

And what’s up with the Newspapers who seem to be pretty much in trouble all over the country. I was reading a piece in Dr. Joe Webb’s Blog (WhatTheyThink) and he pointed out that one of the papers (The Globe) had snubbed an offer to team up with Monster.com in 1995, and others missed the opportunities of starting communities like Craigslist, The Huffington Post and other success stories that have happened over the internet. It seems like there were a lot of opportunities to transition from print media to the internet, but they did not want to look outside of their comfort zone. They sure are trying to make that transition in a hurry now.

How about Social Media..I read a lot on how Social media can help our business. I’ve seen so many stories on Social Media marketing stratigies that it’s almost getting funny. Social Media is what it is, its another form of communication built around virtual communities. So I was reading an article about how printers can harness social media and make it work for them in their marketing efforts. And on this blog there were some pretty average responses about Twittering, blogging and using Facebook, and then Dr. Joe (Above) chimed in and said “it’s not that we should be using Social Media to market ourselves, but we should be teaching our customers how social media could work for them”. Now that’s thinking out of the box; it’s offering our customers a service, which is right in line with the transforming from a manufacturing industry to a service industry. With the changes taking place in this business, we should be doing anything we can to help our customers, its about them, not about us.

Thats todays thoughts. The printing industry is going through a lot of changes and we have to keep looking down the road, think pragmatically and listen to our customers. Because if we don’t follow the lead our customers are asking us to, we might just end up like the newspapers in a few years.