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Tipping Point: New Pitney Bowes White Paper Highlights How Companies Can Profit from Digital Color Printing
Tuesday 20. July 2010 - Company to Host Webinar with InfoTrends Analyst to Examine Implications for Customer Communications
Pitney Bowess (NYSE:PBI) new white paper entitled “The New Economics of Color Print,” reveals technology trends in digital color printing offer potential cost savings and revenue generating advantages to organizations that choose to harness the power of color to enhance the value of their customer communications. The white paper is available for download online here.
While the benefits of color print have been documented for decades, the economics have only recently tipped from black-and-white to color. “Affordable, color digital printing is a game-changer,” said Kevin Marks, a vice president of marketing for production print at Pitney Bowes. “Innovative printing technology can streamline workflow to generate personalized color documents at significantly lower per-page costs especially when you consider postage savings and elimination of pre-printed paper stocks. Companies can also capitalize on the high open and read rates of transaction documents by adding relevant, data-driven offers and promotional messages.”
Marks is hosting a webinar to discuss these findings on Wednesday, July 21, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. Jim Hamilton, the group director of production printing and publishing for InfoTrends Inc., will be the guest speaker on the webinar. Registration and additional information is available online at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/373946203.
The white paper asserts that most cost-benefit analyses of color versus black-and-white printing focus too narrowly on the metric of cost per impression, in which color appears to be at a disadvantage. These analyses fail to account for the true, fully-loaded enterprise costs. For example, companies that print their statements in black-and-white on pre-printed paper stock must also account for the cost of ordering, printing, storing, managing and eventual obsolescence of the unique forms. Digital color printers, by contrast, can create a colorful impression using standard blank white paper stocks, which are lower cost and easier to manage. Additionally, considerable savings can be realized by grouping print runs in new ways that boost productivity and capture postal efficiencies.
Equally significant are the potential revenue opportunities that companies can realize with the effective use of color and targeted messaging. Adding promotional messages and other relevant information onto transactional mailpieces has become a major focal point for marketers and mailers in recent years – and with good reason. Transactional mail generally requires action by the customer, so it is significantly more likely to get opened and read. Digital print stream engineering enables businesses to incorporate “on-serts,” pinpointed messaging printed in color directly onto current transactional documents and envelopes. The white paper notes that a recent study of 1,500 consumers found that 69% said they were more likely to open a mailpiece with color text and graphics. Messages from companies that invest in color are more likely to rise to the top for discriminating consumers who are already saturated with marketing offers in every conceivable medium.