Aggressively Market Digital and Variable Printing

Leonard Christopher, In-Plant Segment Manager with Eastman Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group, offers his observations and advice for the in-plant industry:

“Our customers tell us that they continue to face the challenge of being outsourced by their enterprise in an effort to reduce operational costs. If they aren’t being outsourced, they’re seeing reduced operational budgets year-over-year and are challenged to do more with less and continually prove their value over external print providers.”

“At the same time, these shops are increasingly working with internal clients on targeted marketing programs using variable data printing. By keeping volumes in-house, in-plants are able to help meet or improve upon corporate return-on-investment goals.”

“To keep this process going, in-plants need to get in front of the client and aggressively market the benefits of digital printing and demonstrate the value that they add. They need to educate their clients on 1:1 marketing, variable data printing and the use of color to improve the ROI of programs. They need to work with them to develop new variable data applications.”

“What’s more, they should focus on the total costs of a program versus the cost-per-page. This helps the client understand the hidden costs of traditional printing where run lengths are higher to reduce the cost per piece, but often result in increased inventory costs and waste.”