You can’t stop costs from going up, and you can’t control the labor market.
One thing you can do is look toward the future of print and prepare.
Based on the fact that every OEM in the industry has made major
investments in digital, I believe that this technology will continue
to see growth. And that’s good news for those who want their print jobs
to be economical — while still looking just as good as offset. Here’s why.
The idea of thinking about your company’s holiday cards while the thermometer still says summer might seem a bit premature. But in today’s world of labor and material shortages, supply chain disruptions and extended lead times, a little foresight now could very well pay dividends when the holiday card season is upon us — especially given the recent increase in popularity of holiday cards with millennials.
Food delivery services like Grubhub, DoorDash and a handful of others make it easier than ever before to browse their apps for the restaurant you want, scroll through a simple digital menu and have your ideal meal delivered right to your door with just a few quick clicks. And while this is certainly convenient today — even more so during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when dine-in services across the country were suspended — the digitalization of the dining experience isn’t necessarily all it's cracked up to be.
Direct mail is beloved by marketers because of its effectiveness — according to the Direct Marketing Association (now part of the ANA), up to 90% of direct mail gets opened. Postcards are even more effective; since there’s nothing to open, nothing stands between the message and the recipient. Plus, they’re simple and cost-effective to produce. But there’s another type of direct mail with super-high open rates, and while they may not be as easy to design and print as postcards, we can’t help but love them: dimensional mailers.
When designing for print, designers will often look for creative ways to economize for budgetary reasons; sometimes a clever tweak to a design can help the project to maximize the space on a single sheet of paper, use less ink or reduce the cost of postage.
But it’s not just costs designers are concerned about; there are environmental reasons to think this way, too. Strategically creating print pieces to reduce environmental impact starts in the concept phase, but designers have the power to reduce and reuse throughout the process, especially when specifying job requirements to their print partners.
Here are four steps that you can take to make your next print project more sustainable.
