Written by Jeff Jacobson
President, Global Graphic Communications Operations, Xerox Corporation
Have you noticed all the attention print has been receiving lately through mass media? From coverage in trendy online outlets like Mashable: “Print Is Dead? Vogue Has Its Second Biggest Issue Ever” to pubs such as The Atlantic: “The Death of Print Has Been Greatly Exaggerated,” print has been in the limelight lately.
Frankly, that pleases me – and I am betting you feel the same way.
As one of print’s biggest fans, there’s no better time than leading up to PRINT 13 to talk about its value and strength. It has rallied back from the economic challenges that dominated our industry five years ago.
By innovating and transforming itself, print is a vital component of personalized multi-media marketing campaigns – creating emotional connections and memorable impressions in this fast-pace, digital world.
We all believed in print’s resurgence – and you have made that possible with a “not on my watch” attitude. You weren’t about to give up on print’s relevancy – you found new, innovative ways to make it work. Great job.
Print Makes Things Real
My passion for print runs deep for a lot of reasons. Here’s one: print makes things real in terms of trustworthiness. Check out this study published by Print in the Mix that showed some interesting results:
- There is a 10 percent increase in consumers visiting a brand’s website in response to printed direct mail, as opposed to email
- 56 percent found printed marketing to be the ‘most trustworthy’ of media channels
- 33 percent would have a negative view of a brand not offering printed communications
- 48 percent retained direct mailing for future reference, with 17 percent saying they regularly do so
Print service providers around the world are making money again – producing applications that break traditional molds, creating bold and exciting output. For example, GHC (Golden Hope Communications), an integrated marketing service provider based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, developed a creative digital and print marketing campaign for Clinique that resulted in a 303 percent ROI. That’s pretty amazing, but not surprising, when you consider the power punch print brings to digital. By the way, the printed piece was a personalized calendar using software from XMPie, A Xerox Company.
#PrintWins
Let’s celebrate how far our industry has come and imagine together where we are going.
@XeroxProduction and @XeroxGinaTesta will be doing so using the #PrintWins hashtag on Twitter, as well as Facebook through Xerox Digital Print.
And we encourage you to join the conversation and tell the world how #PrintWins for you and your clients!
Looking for similar topics? Check out these other Digital Printing Hotspot Blog posts:
- Why the PRISM Award Matters
- What the Impika Acquisition Means for Xerox and Our Customers
- Steady Progress Marks First Five Months
- Quick Printing Readers’ Choice Top Product Award: Xerox Receives Four Nominations
- Looking to boost awareness of your company’s capabilities and attract new customers? The Xerox Best-of-the-Best Program can help!
Great article Jeff, its definitely worth noting that colour print in tandem with digital messaging and calls to action really do develop real trust between businesses and consumers.
We are so ready to celebrate with the Xerox Digital Print crew. We’re proudly using the hashtag #printwins as of today. See you guys in Chicago!
I love this blog post! I love the idea of celebrating, of rallying together as a community. #PrintWins will definitely be showing up in the PagePath feed.
Tony – you are absolutely right. In fact, there was a recent InfoTrends study showing that the more campaign channels and touch-points, the higher the response rate. In their study, print-only translated to a 6% response rate, while print coupled with email and web landing pages yielded an 8.2% response rate. Combining print with other digital channels can be an extremely powerful tool
Katherine and Melissa – Thank you for the comments, glad you both are embracing #PrintWins and helping us to celebrate with the industry. There is a lot of fantastic work taking place around us. Sharing it and using it as a learning opportunity will only serve to benefit each of us as well as the future of our community.
Jeffrey Jacobson, President, Global Graphic Communications Operations, Xerox Corporation
Great to read and really exciting to see Xerox at the forefront of emerging technologies and innovation.
Thanks for the encouraging article. Below is a signature I received from another Xerox person and added it to my own.
Use the Forest: Print your emails. It’s okay to use paper.
Trees are renewable, recyclable and sustainable and using paper creates jobs!