Digital Print: Enhance Design and Bottom Line

Digital printing is efficient, customizable, and cost effective. Although it’s been around for years, many printers, designers, and marketers still do not realize the amazing potential of digital printing: rapid turnaround of print pieces that pop.

In 12 years, digital printing has turned the world of print production on its head. It has given graphic designers and printers a level of versatility and creative freedom they might have longed for, but could not have imagined.

As a commercial printer, you’re a player in the digital space, but you also need to be a partner. Where traditional offset printing often allowed designers and printers to remain in separate “silos” (so to speak), the digital space converges communication, design, color, computing, and printing. To be successful in the digital dimension, printers, print buyers, and designers must interact to hone their skills and knowledge. With a spirit of camaraderie to meet technological and logistical requirements, the true potential of digital print can be realized.

When you think about digital printing, remember its amazing ability to maximize personalization and enhance visual attractiveness while simultaneously saving time and money. With digital print, your job’s easier and more lucrative, while your customer is more satisfied—sounds like a good business decision for everyone. Every time a designer brings in a project, you can help educate them on the benefits of digital printing by sharing a few simple tips and tricks.

Personalization = Profit

The ability to personalize a print project is one of digital printing’s greatest strengths. It pays off, too—for you and your customer. For your customer, personalization equals results. Research by Printing Industries of America found that adding color and personalization, such as the recipient’s name, to a direct mail piece increases responses by 135 percent. More personalization added to a color piece increases responses by 500 percent over a black-and-white mailer.

Beyond increasing response rate, digital printing’s ability to increase personalization allows one to be a better, greener marketer. For example, because digital printing allows for lower setup costs, shorter runs, and lower minimums, instead of mailing to every individual in a database, a marketer should target the top 30 percent of customers with a highly personalized piece. If personalization is the answer to achieving a better response rate, digital printing is crucial to your customer’s success.

Going digital is a good decision for you, too. After all, if your customers achieve better return on their investment because of your services, you can count on their continued and frequent business.

What can you do? You’ve seen what works and what doesn’t with personalizing direct mail. Provide your recommendations as early as possible so the designer can maximize the benefit of one-to-one marketing. Also, alert your customer to the software program you prefer for personalization.

Make it POP

A digital press has an amazing ability to reproduce images. However, reproduction of large areas of solid color, tints, and blends on digital presses can sometimes lead to banding and blending issues. A design produced for a digital press should avoid large areas of solid color by including photos, graphics, and text from the start. By doing so, the design will be enhanced as well. Infusing work with photos and graphics is an excellent way to avoid flat areas of color. Additionally, adding subtle patterns—or noise—using image manipulation software is a fun way to break up solid areas of color.

Speaking of color, there is a wider gamut of color available because digital printing uses liquid or dry toners rather than ink. Yet there are limitations in color matching. Most digital presses convert Pantone colors to CMYK equivalents or allow for a conversion formula. Your customer looks to you to help identify problem color areas. It’s important that you speak up and share your knowledge if you see an opportunity to improve color reproduction and eliminate banding. If a close color match is needed, you and the designer should communicate and assess color chips along with the file.