When thinking about business cards and brochures, Peter Posk, president of Fort Lauderdale, Florida-headquartered BCT, encouraged business people to think about the difference between a nice, affordable car and a high-end sports car.
"The gap between a Ford and Ferrari is huge. The gap between a bottom of the barrel business card with someone else's company name on the back and a top of the line business card is less than a hundred dollars. Your business cards and brochures are a representation of you," he said.
The right business card is a conversation starter and will get a person noticed—two things that are paramount in business. And, though technology is taking over as the way to network and communicate, business cards and brochures remain an important part of the print industry.
Tony Rouse, president/CEO at Carol Stream, Illinois-based Team Concept Printing, noted that business is not only important but growing.
"Our sales are up about 30 percent this year and we have seen a lot of our customers start to order more often and higher quantities again. I have started to see more of an attitude towards marketing their businesses once again," he added.
On average, Posk observed BCT's broker business is growing, though its retail business is not.
"That's not to say there aren't some retailers doing well," Posk continued. "One of the large retail quick printers has had nearly 20 months of consecutive growth. I know the CEO and he has shared with me what they are doing. They do a great job training at the store level, and it pays off because the customer experience at the counter is positive."
Lindsay Gray, co-owner of Greenville, North Carolina-based AccuLink, believes the overall volume of printed materials will decrease but the demand for just-in-time or on-demand materials will increase.
But, the future of the industry as a whole will include a bumpy road.
Over the next five years, Posk said the lines between physical print and the digital world will continue to converge.
"Web-to-print integrations with procurement software, and back-end accounting systems will continue to evolve," Posk predicted. "Especially as procurement solutions, once meant only for large companies, get their price points down, and affordable to smaller companies. They are doing this today. History repeats itself."
To survive, Posk commented that print brokers will need to partner with manufacturers that do not compete with them and can supplement their relationships with end-users.
"A broker can't simply be a pass through," he pointed out. "There are still travel agents today, as there are meeting event planners. I'm planning a large meeting event, and spent last night at a wine & food tasting with an event planner as part of planning the menu. It was a tremendous value add. I book travel, cars and hotels online, but there is no way I could plan this event online. I need service, face-to-face interaction and expertise. We are doing everything we can to identify how we can help the reseller that is looking for the value add, which evolves."
As for right now, interesting things continue to happen in the brochures/business cards sector.
People have started to really step up to try to make their product more interesting and unique, Rouse said.
"[They are] looking at many ways to customize their products to set them apart from the others," he noted.
What Posk finds interesting is that for print brokers selling to corporate customers, the printing has become incidental.
"We see print brokers with two broad categories of work when it comes to business cards and brochures," Posk said. "There is commodity, one off, print ready file work ... where price is the driving factor. Then, there is what we refer to as program work. As an example, we just began work for a print broker servicing a Fortune 100 company. The end-user has very specific PMS match requirements on their shells/masters and had quite a few templates that needed to be setup online. Through our paper company we were able to offer a private label stock, with the same specs as their branded stock specifications, at a much lower price. Then we had to do a complete front-end/back-end integration with ARIBA, which they use for procurement. Our local plant was sending technology people out to work with the end-user to make it all happen."
AccuLink is excited by its recent purchase of a Scodix1200™ Digital Press. The Scodix1200 Digital Press produces Scodix SENSE™ by registering clear polymer with pinpoint accuracy to images using a patented optical guidance system. Delivering variable levels of thickness and texture on single or dual-sided printing, the Scodix1200™ has the capacity to produce up to 99 Gloss Units (GU), polymer height up to 70 microns and density capabilities from 1 percent to 100 percent, for an unmatched range of enhancement.
Posk added there are plenty of advantages to this business.
"Anyone selling print knows that business cards and brochures represent the products that every end-user benchmarks against," Posk said. "Years ago, before web-to-print technologies were around, forms brokers never wanted to sell business cards because of all the work involved and the high probability of making a mistake. Today, we can put business cards and brochures online and redo rates are almost non-existent. Once the program is up and running, it becomes an annuity for the print broker."
Gray continued, "Brochures and business cards are often the first contact a prospect has with a new business. These are critical ingredients of a comprehensive corporate identity and product positioning opportunity. To be considered a valued partner in helping a business present their very best first impression is both an honor and a responsibility we take very seriously. Our investments in technology to support our position as a leader in this field validate this."
Rouse added they are the products that give you a big bang for your buck.
"They are, generally speaking, lower ticket items that make a large impact," Rouse said. "[They are] very personal items that represent the person handing them out, so most of the time people are still willing to spend money on them."