Commercial Printing Industry Updates That Affect Marketing

If you own your own business or are a marketer for a business, you may not think commercial printing developments affect you, but they do.

Anytime you need something printed, from brochures to posters, you interact with a commercial printing company. Price hikes, your printing options, paper options – everything that is connected with what you need to have printed – is affected by printing industry developments. Here are some of the latest developments you need to know:

More specialized paper options
There has been a trend in the last few years in the paper industry toward specialization, basically to combat the consolidations of printing companies, so that printing companies can offer more and better paper options. What’s come of that is good news and bad news: you have more paper options for printing your business cards to your postcards, but the bad news is that there’s been an average of a 5% hike in paper prices per year since 2006.

Higher postage prices
Obviously, the price hike of postage will affect your direct mail budget, but it might also affect the type and/or design of the mailer you send out. The price increase varies depending on the type of mailing piece, but the new rules also consider the shape of the mailer, rather than just the weight, which is how the old system worked. You may want to rethink that funky-shaped brochure or postcard or check with the Postal Service before sending it.

Higher gas prices
Well, surprise surprise, something else higher gas prices affect! The paper that is delivered to printers is getting more expensive because of the fuel it takes to drive those big-rigs across country, but so far the printers have been absorbing that extra cost. With the jump of gas prices to over $4 a gallon though, printers will soon be passing on the cost to customers.

Also, many products used in the printing process, including ink and the resins used to make ink, are made with oil or natural gas. So not only the paper cost, but soon the ink and other costs might be passed on to you.

Lower cost per page to print
This is good news: the technological advances in digital and traditional printing are lowering the cost per page when printing on new printers. InfoTrends has estimated that the cost per page of all printing will decrease by 10% per year through 2010. And since color printing prices have dropped, it is expected that more businesses will use color printing over black-and-white. This means you may need to start printing all of your marketing materials in color to keep up with your competitors who will be printing in color.

Now you have a good head start on what to expect the next time you contact your printer. Be sure to keep up with the trends at http://www.topix.com/business/commercial-printing or through the Print CEO Blog (http://printceoblog.com/) that disseminates print industry info in an easy to read format.

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