It is crucial to understand the Print process if you are to make an informed decision about the correct costing for your marketing communication material. The print process has a number of stages, at each of which there is an opportunity to save costs and still manage to get the quality of print material required. This needs a certain amount of understanding of the process at hand so as to be able to gauge the how best can you make the process more cost effective. Both forms of Printing, digital and offset come with their own set of advantages and disadvantages and have certain unique attributes as well as commonalities.

Offset printing:

• This kind of printing provides high image quality.
• Offset printing has a long set-up time and can be expensive. However, this is a one time charge and the costs remain the same regardless of whether you run 1,000 or 5,000 pieces.
• The constant balancing of ink and water can take up a lot of time and incur costs for the wasted material.
• This kind of printing is perfect for high-quality; high volume jobs and can turn out to be incredibly cost effective. While digital printing might come close to the cost benefit ration offset printing provides, they simply cannot compete with the quantum offset presses can generate.

Digital printing:

• Digital printing has a very short turnaround time.
• There is a uniformity of quality as the machine only needs to be fed the ink combination once.
• Low volume printing can be done at highly cheap costs using digital printing.
• Variable Data Printing can allow you to customize your digital printing. Using information from a database or external file, text and graphics can be changed on each piece without stopping or slowing down the press. For example, personalized letters can be printed with a different name and address on each letter. Variable data printing is used primarily for direct marketing, customer relationship development and advertising.

There are other factors to your printing as well that can greatly influence your costs, below are a few of them:

Know your paper

One of the most important steps in getting your marketing communication material printed is in understanding the kind of Paper you might need. There are a variety of papers available in a range of different sizes measured in GSM or ‘grams per square meter’. This scale helps the buyers understand exactly the type of paper they need to buy. Other important factors like durability, quantity of print, purpose of the marketing material, etc. also play important roles in deciding what kind of paper will be required.

For example, the paper used to print brochures on will be different from the paper used to print a leaflet, quite simply because the brochure is a more comprehensive booklet while the leaflet is highly specific in terms of its message, this directly affects their usefulness and longevity. A comprehensive brochure may require thicker paper and a coated finish in order to achieve crisp, colored printing, a leaflet or a direct mail piece, which have a shorter life span, can use thinner, less expensive, non-coated paper. Another thing to keep in mind is asking your printer what size paper works best on their press, any lack of communication at this end can end up with you rushing about at the last minute for new materials.

Color

Not every marketing communication material needs to be in color. Items like leaflets, special offers, and basically items which change on a regular basis may not need to be made in color. However, there are some marketing communication pieces that invariably need a color print. Brochures, catalogues, visiting cards should always be printed in color in order to maximize their impact and increasing their allure. It is important to note that it is always the client that has to make a decision as to whether or not a particular marketing communication piece has to go in color or not. Being selective in this process can help you save a bundle.

Bleed Vs Non-Bleed

One of the most frequent questions the client is assailed with is deciding whether or not to use full bleed printing or non-bleed printing. A full bleed print would mean that there are no white margins as the color extends all the way to the edges of the paper making the print look seamless. However, in this method, the print file produced 1/8^th of an inch larger on the sides than that which needs to be printed, the excess margins are trimmed off after the print process. Non-bleed print on the other hand uses white margins and ensures that no excess paper is wasted. Full bleed printing is more expensive than non-bleed printing, but making sure that the design is most impactful is what should govern making this decision. You do not always have to go for full bleed, innovative designs can even make non-bleed ads look great.

We hope you find this article helpful. For any comments / suggestions, please write to us.

Hue- Your University Marcom Partner

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