| Variable Print, Variable Sales Success |
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| Friday, 12 October 2007 | |
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An industry veteran, I ran NZ's first variable colour print job back in 1995 on a Xerox 4040 system with a Scitex RIP. I specialised in this area, repeating this feat hundreds of times on the faster models that followed. However variable full-colour printing, although a very mature technology, is seldom utilised. It can be immensely successful when done right, providing superb response rates for businesses and high margins for printers. (Visit PODI). One of the problems is that it's quite difficult and relatively costly to set up from a design and production perspective. I managed to master it and make it run flawlessly every time, but it was a bit like assembling a car engine in the dark. Easy once you know all the bits intimately. Unfortunately most Mac operators lack the analytical skillsets. Their passion is [quite naturally] the creative side, not workflows or problem-solving. To them there were just too many things to go wrong, and having to learn about evil databases and PCs didn't help either!
Selling Variable isn't easy The selling of variable printed products is just as hard, and this was reiterated in an article earlier this year by my friend and Sales Trainer, Bill Farquharsen of Printtech. An extract of his article is outlined below. Click here for the original. Here were some of the challenges on the customer's end:
These issues are not insurmountable. Automation and allowing the client to do more themselves using common software is the key. Without this variable colour printing won't take off. Factoring in any specialist software or technical skills is making it too hard for the average printshop owner and business client. It currently takes too long, costs too much and involves far too many people in the implementation process, making it difficult to sell.
Simplify, simplify... The secret lies in a creating a much simpler, more customer-friendly package - We need to make creating a variable print campaign (b/w and colour) as easy for clients as creating their newsletter in MS Word. Unfortunately the latest variable colour printing solutions from our suppliers appear to be going in the opposite direction, adding complexity. Sure, some of the samples they provide are stunning - What they don't tell you is all the time, costs and skills involved to produce it, from beginning to end. The result being a 'product' that will only appeal to niche markets and to clients with big budgets. Bringing Variable to the Masses A breakthrough into this new market mean the entire design-production phase needs to be short. A few hours, not days or weeks. It should be inexpensive too, yet because of the higher response rates, Printers could charge a 20-30% premium. Production should be automated. i.e. Jobs arrive via the net in optimised PDF format, ready for auto-imposition and auto-printing. Under ten minutes operator intervention; no costly variable print software; no database merging, no geeks; no waiting. Basically no harder than printing a 'static' job. This simpler workflow would finally open up big variable print opportunities in the largely untapped small business sector and get all those under-utilised digital colour printers working overtime. What's the key enabler of this? It software that is already loaded onto 95% of all the world's PCs. Call or email me for the details. Kevin Trye This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Comments (1)
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I'm a huge advocate of variable printing, having been involved in dozens of successful projects over the years, many during my 7 years at Fuji Xerox using both Docutech (b/w) and DocuColor systems.
