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A semi-anonymous person commented on the blog regarding printing and prepress job trends recently, and since it wasn’t a spammer, I went to their website. If you haven’t already, check out the link. What I saw shocked and amazed me, for some reason. They had an ad for their Google AdWords service! Free month! The mind reels at the thought of it. In all seriousness, I thought this was pure genius. It really really surprises me that more printers doing something like this.
Here are some possible reasons NOT to make the SHORT AND PLEASANT LEAP into new media:
- Printer might lack the skillset in-house to accomplish new media advertising, web development, pURLS etc.,
- Doesn’t have the financial capability to invest in required software, train or retrain existing people (by the way, prepress operators are PERFECT for this!),
- Mistakenly believes that their customers “don’t want it”,
- Sales of new media TOO DIFFICULT,
- Believes/hopes/wishes the internet would just go away and stop poaching customers.
Communication methods have changed over time. The age of print has peaked. There was a time when print was the ONLY form of mass communication, and like I’ve said before (boring!!!) it helped shape democratic society. The People (with a capital P, mind you) want to use Twitter, blogs, and Google Ads to get their message out.
One of the reasons so many print shops and newspapers are closing, in my opinion, is that they could not make the leap, like Colorcraft has. If a print shop really has a good excuse not to push forward with internet based media, I’m sure there are a plethora of compatible young and hungry marketing agencies who would be more than happy to partner up, send customers to each other, and create a way for printers to not only sustain their business but enter the new media century with ease.
And it looks to me like it’s already being done! Cheers to Colorcraft!
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6 Comments
This is a very good site. I like it. It is a very good idea and i think it will work effectively.
I think there are other reasons that most printers haven't made the leap. The most important is that they don't have the time.
Everything else can be gotten. It takes too much time to think and time to follow through for anyone who is not already inclined in that direction. When it works, it usually means there is at least one and if you're really lucky two people who both get it and can stay focused on getting it done. Congrats to ColorCraft for having that person and allowing them to get it done. From what I've seen it's usually someone with a background in “Prep” that's where it comes from.
Another possible way that might be more natural for most printers is to consider the power of the printed piece to connect to personal TV on line. If the print product has QR codes and human readable URL's it's a neat connection. If the print product has TinyPurls and Smart QR (technologies like CodeZ) that means a click stream from Print that can be harvested for customer analytics. I'm starting to believe that the only high margin part of this business are customer analytics. To be clear, I don't believe that printers have the skill set to deliver analytics, but the globals have some offerings that should help. There are also lots of SaaS analytic providers that could probably do a reasonable enough job.
My assertion is that there are only two push media, Print and TV. Now that TV is becoming completely fragmented and devolving into a gezillion channels , print can be the TV guide for the Internet.
thats funny
A real blocker for printers is their awesome distrust of designers, customers and other printers. I think it's a legacy of the early days of printing when it was a “black art.”
The obvious solution is the one you highlight:
If a print shop really has a good excuse not to push forward with internet based media, I’m sure there are a plethora of compatible young and hungry marketing agencies who would be more than happy to partner up, send customers to each other, and create a way for printers to not only sustain their business but enter the new media century with ease.
Thanks!
I love the idea of printing as a “black art”! Like we are a bunch of secretive medievel alchemists, stirring a big boiling cauldron whose contents are known only to us, but which are certain to contain metaphysical ingredients like knowledge and truth, derived from bat wings or eye-of-newt!