Don't be so quick to place the marker.

The Internet has been buzzing with reports of the demise of printing. The book industry in particular has been all aflutter about The Kindle, The Nook, and iPad. Are they right? Have electronics finally won? Is printing dead?

I am old enough to remember all of the predictions of a paperless office. Computers were supposed to eliminate the need for paper. Instead, printing flourished at a time when the era of paper was sure to be over.

It is different this time. Although I think it is too early to write off printing, I do believe that the boom we saw with the advent of computers won’t repeat. The business climate has changed, not only for now, but also for the future. There are several reasons for this:

• Direct Mail Advertising has been wounded–not fatally, not yet.

1. The first arrow to strike was postal charges. Unfortunately, the post office has a blind spot when it comes to pricing. They don’t understand that there is a direct correlation between rising prices and declining customers. The higher stamps cost, the more people turned away.  The US post office has been the greatest friend email could ever have.
2. The second arrow was the Internet. Websites provide options that ink on paper can never duplicate and at incredible prices. Electronic advertising has eliminated much of the need for media. No paper. No ink. No presses.
3. The third arrow was the recession. Companies of all sizes hunkered down behind walls of cash refusing to spend until the customers were ready to buy. The customers, of course, having lost jobs, having had salaries decreased, and in a tightening credit market find themselves unable to buy. It’s what is known as (with apologies to our neighbors south of the US) a Mexican standoff. Where were the easiest places to cut their budgets? Printing, particularly direct mail.
4. The fourth arrow is book readers. Book readers are coming on strong. I myself, love books. I have a well-stocked home library, but there are books I can get free and others that I would like to be more portable. I, the defender of printing, will get a reader for myself. Actually I already have one in my iPhone, but every book bought electronically is a book that isn’t printed.

• Form Printing and Envelopes have taken one to the chest.

1. Nearly everyone uses on-line forms to pay bills, buy something, or get credit. It’s quick, user friendly, and no one has to buy a stamp or wait several days for delivery.
2. The changes is bill paying greatly reduce the need for envelopes. From the millions upon millions of envelopes purchased by the financial industry alone to a bare trickle.

• Catalogs, Newspapers, and Magazines are dropping dead in their tracks.
  

1. Pundits warned us of the paperless office, but they didn’t tell us about the paperless home. Who could have predicted a family breakfast scene without the father figure sitting behind the daily news? Oh sure, we still have many of the same magazines, but their page counts are down to half or more. And their sell price has gone up. They raise prices and just as surely decrease buyers.
2. Catalogs are experiencing the same problems as magazines. It costs too much to mail, so they reduce their page count. The point where catalogs split from magazines is the Internet. Newspapers and magazines have served for hundreds of years as paid information sources. Information on the Internet has been free. People expect the Internet to be free and therefore they are unwilling to pay. Catalogs never had, and never will have a paid subscriber base.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Printing has changed and many of the changes are permanent. All that being said, I’m optimistic about the future. There are innovations introduced all the time to make printing, better, cheaper, and faster. The Internet for all its puffery and bluster has been proven to be less effective than direct mail as an advertising medium. Yes, you can get a great CPM (cost per thousand) but there is such a massive overwhelm that customers have learned to tune the advertising out. If you want a buyer to pay attention to your message, put something in their hands.

I envy the printers for one thing in particular, they are updated regularly by paper merchant reps who call on them with the latest developments, updates, and changes. I get my information either second hand or by attending seminars and showings hosted by the merchants. In the last two weeks I attended a seminar on preparing art files for printing, direct mail, and the danger of the opt-out initiative, and digital printing advancements. I never know what a customer is going to ask of me and I have to be prepared.

Yesterday, Sappi paper sent Daniel Dejan, their North American ETC Print/Creative Manager to town to speak about graphic design and file prep. I thanked Daniel for his presentation, but didn’t thank him enough. You see the printers depend on the artists and graphic designers to keep the presses rolling. The graphic designers need the printers to produce their products. But to hear them talk about each other, you’d think there is a war going on. The printers say that graphic designers don’t even try to prepare their files correctly, that they think because something looks right on the screen it will print right. Designers on the other hand, think that the printers are screwing up their files, and if they just knew what they were doing the jobs would all run smoothly.

Stop the bickering. Mr. Dejan framed the problem as having its roots primarily in the graphic programs and in the designers failure to take the finishing steps necessary to make sure their files are correct.

I can tell you from my personal experience that computer design has completely overhauled the printing industry. When the first design programs were introduced, they created more problems than they solved. Over the years we have seen definite improvements. The programs are much better but still far from perfect. Could they get even better? Yes. Are they striving to implement technology that would fix the disconnect between printer and graphic artist? Not really. Daniel says that he has recommended changes that are possible, but are shrugged off as being too expensive, or time consuming, and aren’t worth doing. Millions of dollars every year are wasted in printer and designer time because the needed tweaks aren’t happening. Printers and designers need to get together and insist that the software is improved. Maybe working on changes that would throw up red flags when art is incomplete or wrong isn’t sexy, but it would go along way to reducing wasted hours and angry phone calls.

“The single most important thing a designer can do to communicate the job to the printer,” according to Daniel, “is to provide a hard-copy dummy. Herein lies the rub, most files are now emailed to the printer or go by way of ftp. It used to be that the print rep picked up the art and delivered it to the printer. Hard-copy dummies were more common then. We have gotten away from them today, but they are still critical to successful communication. I hate to say it, but it seems to me that we need to take a step backward and have the print reps pick up the disk and hard-copy dummy to take back to the shop. We’ve lost an important communication opportunity along the way.

The second most important task for the designer is to pre-flight their own files. A good pre-flight program provides information about problem spots like low-res photos, but also tosses all the false starts and junk that accumulate as the design is developing. It’s like delivering a finished statue without cleaning it up or sweeping the debris around it. It’s not just ugly; it confuses the rip and leads to wrong fonts being selected, and other problems.

Every printer in the world would love for Daniel Dejan of Sappi to personally instruct the graphic designers, but that isn’t possible. What is possible is that the word gets out about dummies, and pre-flights and most of the problems would be resolved early.

As for Adobe and the others, come on, give us a break. Listen to Daniel, take his advice, and endow your programs with the tweaks needed to help stop the war.

Sappi’s website is www.sappi.com. If you would like to discuss other design-print problems with Daniel, his company email is daniel.dejan@sappi.com.

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Dean Martin in his television show used to close with, “Keep those cards and letters coming.” We don’t do cards and letters much anymore, so I say, keep those comments and emails coming. You see, a blog works best when it is interactive. I love it when someone takes the time to tell me they are appreciating my work, or even they disagree with something I’ve written. I publish every comment, good, bad, or indifferent, except those I deem to be spam. For any readers that may have made comments that seemed to be spam, I’m sorry if I deleted it. Send me another and try to make it less spammy.

So why am I going on about reader comments, because a reader reminded me recently of something I haven’t thought about in a long time, that printers always say the same three things:

1. Quality:  I don’t know of a printer out there that doesn’t tell their customers that they are a top quality printer. Just check your local telephone book yellow pages and notice how many printer advertisements use the word “quality.” It doesn’t matter if they are printing on paper plates, with a 30 year-old press, and a part-time high school drop-out press operator, they still promise quality. Are they lying? Not necessarily, quality could be defined as  producing a product that meets the customer’s needs. What is quality to one customer may not meet the standards of another. The two customers would define quality differently but that doesn’t make either one right or wrong. Its all in how it is measured. What is the standard? In printing quality is often determined by customer satisfaction. If the customer is happy, we’re happy. If the customer is unhappy, nobody is happy.
2. Price: Again look at those ads. How many promise a good price or even the lowest price? Most people think that printing costs too much, so if you can make a case for bargain basement pricing you will get customers. In my 35-ish years in the business I’ve learned to be wary of customers who are only focused on price. They frequently turn out to be very high maintenance people who will nickle and dime a printer to death. A competitive price for a good job is more important to me than saving a buck or two.
3. Service: Every printer prides themselves on good service. What does that mean? Just like quality, service is one of those words that mean different things to different people. It depends on what you are looking for. Some customers need reassurance. Others need to know that their questions will be correctly answered. There are customers that get annoyed if contacted too often, and others that want to see you almost daily. Some want your billings and paperwork to be immaculate. Some judge service on how quickly the phone is answered, or how long they have to wait on line. I’ve had an upset customer complain about the clothing the delivery guy was wearing. Good service to them would have been satisfied if the delivery person was wearing a clean uniform.

Years ago I worked for a printer in Denver, Colorado. The sales manager was fond of saying, “A good relationship with a customer doesn’t just happen, you have to build it like a marriage. You must discover what their preferences are. If you squeeze toothpaste from the middle of the tube, and they roll it up from the bottom, you can guarantee future problems.”

The next time a sales rep from a printer comes by to ask for your business, notice how long it takes them to say, “We have the best quality, our prices are excellent, and we will provide you with great service.” I’m betting, not very long. If you work for a company that does a lot of printing you could hear the same thing coming out of different lips many times a day. You may tire of it, but they couldn’t very well come in and say, “We have poor quality, our pricing is terrible, and our service really sucks” could they? It might be refreshing to you, but it wouldn’t be very reassuring.

Now this is where I would like to see you keep those cards and letters coming. If you have any thoughts, all of you marketing geniuses out there, that you think would be a better approach please send it in. Whatever we do in this business it shouldn’t be mundane, or repetitive. Creativity is the name of the game. If you would like to hear something fresh from printers let’s give them some ideas. Are you with me on this?