Is digital printing a production technology? Or a marketing strategy? “Digital Printing: Transforming Business and Marketing Models” argues for the latter. It presents digital production not as technology in the domain of print buyers and production managers but as the foundation of a comprehensive strategy for changing the way marketers look at document management and marketing.

Report Quick Stats:

• 68 pages

• Two dozen charts, tables, and graphics, including samples from 1:1 campaigns, hypothetical ROI calculations, and pie charts showing industry adoption.

• Training & distribution licenses for training your sales force, marketing staff, and CSRs

What's New

This report has been substantially updated since its September 2008 release. The updates are as follows:

• 10 additional pages
• Updated text, including acknowledgement of wide-format and photo specialties
• Discussion of growth in digital print volumes
• New section on how digital print “greens” marketing
• New section on the impact on developments in inline finishing
• New discussion of digital printing and survivability in the mail stream
• Updated graphics on percentage of printers offering digital printing, 1:1 printing, and Web-to-print

Report Contents:

This report is broken down into six sections.

Section 1 looks at what digital printing is, along with its benefits and drawbacks from a marketing perspective. It examines traditional “sticking points” for digital printing, including binding and finishing, survivability of digital print in the U.S. mail stream, and the availability of substrates. This section also looks at how these characteristics drive key marketing applications.

Section 2 looks at how digital printing is used to "green" marketing programs. Discussion of the technology and applications, including case studies.

Section 3 takes a closer look at each of these applications. Each discussion will include a series of short case studies in each of eight marketing classifications (short-run static, versioning, one-off personalized follow-ups, automated fulfillment, personalized URLs, 1:1/personalized printing, transactional and transpromotional, and Web-to-print) that provide key insights into how these applications are used in the real world.

Section 4 takes a look at new ways of evaluating cost that are critical to digital printing success: cost per piece, cost per lead, and ROI, among others. Hypotheticals are used to drive the points home.

Section 5 examines five “critical success factors” that enable marketers to take maximum advantage of digital printing technology. Also included are key insights into helping marketers choose the right service provide to implement digital printing campaigns for their businesses.

Section 6 draws final conclusions and provides additional resources as a next step.

The goal of the report is for marketers to be left with the understanding that the importance of digital printing has nothing to do with the technology—its costs, its output capabilities, or the applications it can produce, although many of them are discussed in the report. It’s about transforming how they think about marketing. Although that starts with technology, the important thing is not the digital printing technology itself, but the way it can be combined with other technologies (particularly databases, email, wireless, and the Internet) to create broader solutions that make a real difference in how business market their products, as well as how they communicate with customers on a short-term and long-term basis and present their brands.

The information is presented both from the perspective of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), as well as large corporate marketers.

"Digital Printing: Transforming Business Models and Marketing" can be purchased as a standalone report or in a training and education license that enables companies to distribute the report internally via print or Intranet for training of your sales force, marketing staff, and customer service reps. (See purchase link.)

Licenses come with a FREE "best practices" white paper that can be used as a giveaway or incentive for self-promotion purposes.