Join the Transpromo Revolution

The development of inkjet technologies, Delaune feels, has enabled printing of high-quality documents at the high speeds required by transactional customers. Depending on the application, she adds, printers “can vary the color coverage and quality, thus controlling the cost of printing—resulting in a variety of service levels and price points for the transpromo client.”

Trend Spotters

Over the last few years, Fox says he has noticed printers who do transpromo “going to a lot more color, and higher quality color. Turnaround times have gotten shorter. It’s much more competitive because of postal rates going up and variable printing increasing. Also, the number of impressions has been doing down. It makes it much more competitive for the printer.”

Commercial printers who plan to begin marketing transpromo “really have to start asking a different question,” says Bryant. Rather than having the more conventional conversation about print quality, customer service, and “the type of legacy checkpoints that a commercial printer is measured on, they really need to start migrating into a more consultative conversation with their customer around what the outcome is that they want this channel to fulfill.”

Ahead, says Fox, the bar must inevitably be raised. “I think you are going to see faster speed printers, higher quality printing, new types of stocks that are going to be less expensive to print even higher quality. We’ll also see printers getting more innovative, with in-line finishing in their print operations.”

When it comes to finding new opportunities for revenue growth, no empty spaces should be left unexamined.