Hidden Profiles in Print Markets: Putting a New Face to Buyers

Should your firm be all things to all customers? That proposition returns periodically as printers weigh the direction investments should take. To a large extent, though, the manufacturing part of the process is becoming secondary. The critical point is engaging the customer in the jargon or even, for multinationals, the language spoken, measures used and products required.

Targeting markets is a path long trod by larger printers, well versed in the peculiarities of traditional sectors like inserts, books, publications, directories.

But increasingly, general commercial printers are adopting a unique persona, often displayed only online, to present a particular face to a specific target market—positioning themselves squarely within a given niche. The parent operation operates in the background, producing and shipping projects, while the entry points flow jobs destined for various user markets. The Web interface, increasingly a digital storefront, brings in the orders from these ranges of targeted marketspaces.

There are risks. One danger is creating a thin veneer—posting a site decked out in the trappings and buzzwords of the client market, but without back-room print operations really adopting the culture of the customer category. When clients make direct contact with customer service, they may be put off if they experience a lack of serious depth of knowledge, or feel that they are going through an education process for the printer about fundamentals of their market's requirements.

Increasingly, print customers are turning into print marketers, devising a face for the end user. Paporganics.com is such a print buyer. It has developed its own product lines, and finds hidden print sources to supply them, acting as marketing agent and dealer.

In other cases, print wholesalers (not an unprecedented concept, but new in its Web-energized manifestation), like Henderson, NV-based 4colorprint.com, actively seek dealers for their online channels. Indicative of the layered channels that obscure the original print sources, 4colorprint.com is also known as Designline Graphics, Inc., and it operates as well under another product brand, Silkcards.com, producing gift cards and texturized business cards wholesale to client dealers. These clients, in turn, further position the products in market niches.

The company is careful to subsume its identity in favor of its dealers. In fact, we found them only through a press release issued by a Hollywood-based broker, 1000broadcasts.com (a firm that also produces movie shorts), which had developed a specialized offering: jumbo sized gift cards that double as self-mailer promotions. The redemption rate on these large plastic postcards with $50 in value embedded electronically is astronomical, says the company—much higher than an analog $50 off coupon—because of the value perceived by the recipient.

If these layered skeins of Internet presence seem daunting, there is a relatively simple way to engage customers online: the familiar Graphic Arts BlueBooks. Well-thumbed copies of this regionalized directory have been lodged prominently on the shelves above estimators' and production planners work tables since 1929. Now, there is a relaunched online version of this key source for locating outsourced print services, specialties, finishing, and for finding paper, merchants, ink and equipment dealers in your area.

The eight BlueBook editions, issued annually for each of the regions, narrow the search window when you've got to find a source fast. With the online edition, the same availability is extended to thousands of prospective clients. To take advantage, simply go online and enter or update your listing. You'll find it right at the blue tab at http://directory.graphicarts online.com

bill.esler@reedbusiness.com