ValueCheck! — The Internet is not the Death of Print!

 

By Sudarsha Rambaran, Value Communication Fellow, Mainz

A couple of days ago, became clear to us that many print companies believe that the internet and social media are fatal to their business. After discovering this, Şükran and I went on to research why that is; as digital natives, we could not imagine why print is believed to be a dying breed, especially by the printers themselves.

The research yielded some surprising results. I googled the term “print companies” and I found quite a few print companies from the US that are using the digital world wonderfully to their advantage. For example, Print Three is a Canadian company which has a beautifully designed website and a modern and innovative advertisement on YouTube. I loved the advertisement, since it was very customer-oriented and did not focus on explaining the technology of the printers, as printing companies tend to do. Instead, it elucidated the products, and fixated on what the company can do for “you” (i.e. the customer). They also have a sister company, Eden, which offers help on a social media level and also utilizing the web in a coherent way. Another impressive example was a company called AlphaGraphics, which works with a similar business model as Print Three.

I also came across a blog, written by UK expert Matthew Parker. It was like social media marketing for dummies, as he breaks it down into three simple steps and their advantages:

1. Create interest

• Customers will take more of an interest in you if you stay in touch and send them valuable information.
• Become a valuable resource for the customer; make sure you are the person they go to if they need something

2. Start engagements

• Post interesting information, thus encouraging discussions. Why? Because every action has a reaction!

3.   Create opportunities for offline engagement

• In order to truly do business successfully, you have to move the relationship away from social media in the final step
• Use social media to set up human-to-human meetings

The above is such a simple concept, so I really don’t understand why it seems to be such a problem for printing companies.

 

Please read as well Sükran’s survey results.

Or watch the full movie with all results by both of us.