Darwinism and Print

When Darwin published his ‘On the Origin of Species’ in 1859, the establishment were apoplectic. God created the world in 4004 BC, according to the authoritative figure of Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in 1860.

The Vatican was not pleased with Darwin – it fundamentally challenged some of the pillars of Christianity itself. Who knows, in another 100 years we may find a different body of evidence that changes our established beliefs again and we find that Darwin was totally wrong? But for now, the perceived wisdom is that he’s right. On the 11^th of February 2009, the Vatican finally accepted he may be right after all!

Contrary to the naysayers, print is not on the 'endangered species' list and is not going to go away anytime soon. It is, however, changing at an ever increasing pace. When we consider how much ‘unused’ (irrelevant, unread, out of date or just too many printed in the first place) print has been thrown away over the years (some estimates put the figure at 60%) the size of the ‘printing industry’ (by volume of paper converted) has always been artificially large by any metric based on marketing effectiveness or efficiency.

Environmental concerns, the impact of alternative communication channels and the global economic tsunami have forced those that commission print to reassess its value in the marketing mix. We should get used to fact that our ‘industry’ will never be the same again. By the time we get through this recession, the old lithographic printing business model will be but a distant memory for all but the ultra lean and mean super sites soaking up the last of the volume market before the more agile performers eat their lunch with next generation high speed, high quality variable content inkjet machines. Those ‘agile performers’ will have evolved rapidly into data centric, service oriented multi-channel providers of marketing solutions.

There is a window of opportunity between now and then to lay down your marker and join the elite band of visionaries who will shape the future of (arguably) the most important development in the history of Humankind – PRINT!

Planning to be Successful with W2P

Whilst many Printers now accept that high-end digital printing technology can and will become the master of litho, the concept of selling print online has not achieved the same front of mind status. There are still a majority of Print businesses out there that have not yet embraced W2P, and many of those that have tried have failed to implement successfully for a variety of reasons, the main ones usually being a flawed strategy and a lack of effective implementation planning.

There are many lessons to be learned about how the use of media is changing in diverse socio-demographic groups as a direct consequence of the rapid change in communications technology. Print is not immune from these same forces (print is, after all, just another communication medium) and we ignore the lessons of the last five years of media convergence at our peril! The pace of change is also quickening and we have some tantalising glimpses of what the near future might look like, but what impact will these changes have on Print? If only we could accurately predict five years out we’d all be multi-millionaires – but one thing is for sure; if it doesn’t need to be printed, it won’t be! Faced with an avalanche of alternative channels such as TwitFaceBlogLinkWave, we need to change the conversations we have with the Marketers so that they truly understand the relevance, effectiveness and efficiencies of an e-enabled print solution as part of the marketing mix. There is much talk about Printers becoming ‘Marketing Services Provider’ instead of ‘Print Services Provider’, offering purls, e-mails et al to the CMO. Most Print businesses, with 2-3 years of lease payments still to go, should be focussed on generating cash and that means filling those presses, both litho and digital. If you’ve never sold print online successfully, what credibility will you have to take on a marketer’s online digital marketing? W2P should be the first logical step on the ladder to becoming that elusive MSP.

You can plan for online success by creating a winning Strategy, an efficient Implementation and an effective Marketing plan that is realistic, achievable and sustainable. If you don't plan, you won't succeed.

Now is the time to take your business online.

http://www.w2p.co.uk