A Look at Printing in 2010

I'D LIKE to take a quick glance back at 2009 and one forward to 2010 for the printing industry. My comments here are largely anecdotal and are based on my observations of, and conversations with, members of the printing community. Despite the subjective nature of these findings, there do seem to be trends forming.

2009 was a harsh year for business. Print volumes seemed to be down in most industries with the exception of education. My guess is that K-12 school district printing was already cut to the bone and that, while higher education was experiencing cuts like everyone else, there are simply more students—particularly in community and technical colleges. This enrollment increase is due to students retraining to find another job, as well as due to students remaining in school because jobs aren't available.

Print volumes also seem to be down for most job types, with the exception of color marketing materials. My prediction is that direct mail jobs will drop and then rise later in the year. The drop will be because, despite the best marketing efforts, people just aren't buying yet and marketing budgets will be depleted. Marketing will shift investments from direct mail to e-mail, traditional online and social media in hopes of finding more cost-effective ways to get their messages out.

Much of this money will return to print as two things happen:

• When consumer confidence rises and customers reenter the market.

• When marketing departments realize that, though electronic programs can augment direct mail, they cannot replace it. Spam filters, unrealistic expectations of miracles from social media, and general electronic overload will limit their effectiveness.

Some of this money, however, will never come back to print. New marketing channels like social media will continue to evolve and will require time and money formerly spent on direct mail and advertising. When this will happen is the answer that everyone wants to know.

Ready for Recovery

My perspective is that, while funding is limited, people are finally, really ready to turn this around. I say this because I find increasing response rates to our marketing programs and increased interest in equipment and software investments. I think that the market truly is improving—but that, even if I'm right, it will be a slow and lengthy journey.

As a final comment, after more than 25 years in this business I've seen hard times and recoveries—and this one is different. Obviously, the global scale of this recession is noteworthy, but the recovery indicators seem different as well. In past times, many of the initial printers who started reinvesting were simply the first to give up "holding their breath." By this, I mean that those initial investments were almost always replacements for outdated equipment that just had to be made.

This time the first investments I'm seeing are not replacements, but rather new capabilities to improve productivity or to create new opportunities. In-plants are investing in digital color to bring work back in-house and save money. Commercial printers are also investing in digital color, as well as in automated workflows, to efficiently capture new jobs that weren't winnable or profitable before. Everyone has either invested in Web-to-print and online storefronts or is seriously figuring out how to do so in order to fend off their competition and to reach more customers. And much of the current interest is in personalization, PURLs and variable data printing—although investment decisions in this area are lagging.

So, in closing, I am glad 2009 is behind us and believe that 2010 will be better for the printing industry. The organizations that will have the best 2010 will be the ones that can grow their strategic relevance with their customers and find ways to evolve and grow their business from traditional print jobs to new opportunities. IPG

Greg Cholmondeley, manager of Segment Marketing Programs at Ricoh Americas Corp., has given numerous presentations at in-plant conferences. He can be reached at: Greg.Cholmondeley@ricoh-usa.com