Matching your marketing materials to the right printing method
Article by Barb Rowan
Anyone who handles the printing of marketing materials is well aware that paper prices and printing costs are on the rise. With the availability and sophistication of online communications, some marketers even claim that “print is dead.”
The truth, of course, is that print is far from dead. Despite its traditional tag, printed brochures, direct mail packages and marketing kits remain powerful components within an integrated approach to reaching your audience.
Many clients balk at spending a disproportionate share of their marketing budget on hard-copy messaging– with good reason: Printed materials cost money to produce, and the expense is only going to grow.
Does that justify a decision to abandon printed materials? Not at all. Gasoline prices have shot up, but have people stopped driving? No, but they’re more careful about when and why they jump into their cars.
These economic factors motivate successful marketers and their clients to develop relevant content that is well conceived and delivered to the target audience. At that moment, the choice of printing methods to support messaging and positioning is experienced as designed–or falls flat–no pun intended.
Learning the lingo
When considering printing methods and how to best fit current and traditional technology to your business and marketing needs, you need to have a handle on terms and technology. That way, you can make informed decisions when discussing options with creative professionals or printers.
Even before a project goes to the design phase, it is essential to know what printing method is going to be used. Decisions made mid-stream can cause costly redesigns or additional prepress considerations.
Let’s review the primary printing options, with an eye toward identifying which projects are best suited to which technology.
Letterpress printing This traditional form of printing has been revived by creative and clever artisans, who in some cases, actually rescued printing presses from the cast-iron graveyard. They understood there was still a market for this highly textured, short-run printing method. Larger offset shops have letterpress presses relegated to specialty projects.
Letterpress employs raised type or designs cast on a variety of surfaces, including metal, rubber and wood (die). The ink is applied to the raised surface; the non-printing areas or spaces are recessed. The paper used in letterpress printing is softer (ideally) and holds a dimensional imprint. In fact, the current vogue is to create a deep crisp imprint–almost to the point of tearing the paper–to give the finished piece a sculptural look and feel.
Applications: Although the cost-per-unit can be high, letterpress delivers excellent quality for short-run specialty jobs, such as chap books (stylized, pocket-sized booklets) high-end announcements and invitations. Also used to add value to an offset piece by embossing or stamping. It is primarily used for one to two-color typographical and non-photographic designs.
Offset printing
Traditionally, offset required a prepress production step of making negatives from finished layouts and then burning ink-receptive plates. Current technology eliminates that step, allowing digital files to be transferred directly onto ink-receptive plates.
This ink is transferred from the plate to a rubber blanket on the press and then to the paper. This printing process can handle from one to as many as eight colors, as the paper travels through the press printing adding colors down the line. Premium printing may involve the use of metallic inks, special color matching, varnishes and coatings to add complexity to the design (such as spot varnished to enhance images), or durability for heavy use (such as presentation folders). Offset printers vary widely in practice and capability. Consumer awareness and networking is essential.
Applications: Offset is ideal when quality and detail matters, such as photographic high-end sales literature, luxury product brochures, fine dining menus, professional business papers and communication pieces that require special treatment. Initial set-up charges are high, but for larger quantities, offset is competitive on a per-unit basis.
Digital printing
Also called “on demand” printing–is used for short-run quick-turn projects. Also used when variable data, or personalization is important. There is no inventory–you simply run the job again when additional quantities are needed.
Digital presses are essentially high-end 4-color copiers that combine scanner and laser-print technologies (and sometimes ink-jet). Although registration and color-matching capabilities continue to improve, a digitally-printed product is not as durable as an offset printed piece. That’s because the ink (actually, the toner) is applied to the surface and is then either thermally or chemically fused to the paper, whereas offset inks are absorbed into the structure of the paper. Photography, for that reason, is higher contrast and not as detailed. Cracking, scuffing and irregular coverage make digitally printed pieces generally unsuited for mailing (unless they’re placed in a protective envelope) or when a long shelf life is needed.
When specifying digital printing, it is worthwhile to seek out professionals who have knowledge of offset printing for their expertise on paper and interpretation of a project on a digital press.
Applications: Digital printing is useful for short print runs (up to 1,000 sheets or so), jobs with significant variable data, such as a customized mailing to unique recipients, or pieces where lower quality and durability are non-issues.
Photocopying
The color photocopiers found in commercial copy centers are generally only slightly more feature laden than a typical high-speed office copier (depends on your office needs). All the negative concerns of digital printing are accentuated with photocopying, which should be avoided except for very low-end communications or pieces that have been designed specifically to not suffer from this method (no heavy coverage or matching concerns).
Applications: Best relegated to jobs where cost is the primary factor, such as quick-print proposals, single-color forms and business production printing.
The bottom line
When deciding on which printing method is best suited to your project, it’s important to evaluate more than the cost per unit. You need to consider the quality, value and ultimate impact of the finished piece.
Clients sometimes convince themselves that the savings from using lower cost print options justify the sacrifice in appearance. But the old saying, “How many chances do you get to make a first impression?” never applies more than when your customer encounters a printed piece you hope communicates a commitment to quality. If it looks like you settled for “good enough,” will your customer take away a similar message about your company, your products and your service?
About the Author
Barb Rowan is Outsource Marketing’s Art Director and a veteran of more than two decades of weaving print, Web, and 3-D projects together to express memorable and sustainable communication solutions.
Outsource Marketing is the Northwest based marketing outsourcing pioneer that offers companies a marketing department if they don’t have one, or strategic and creative horsepower if they do. Visit http://www.outsourcemarketing.com.
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