July

Finding the Right Printer

Posted In: Marketing by Gregor Anton

: Image via Wikipedia

There are many printers out there, but how do you pick the right one?
…And does it make sense to just use your home/office printer/photocopier?

Let me answer that question by asking you some more questions…

Would you really do business with someone that had bad printed material?

Did you know that it costs you more to print bad quality material on your in-house top-notch printer?

MYTH: It Costs Less to Run Bigger Jobs; FACT – It costs you less for smaller jobs!

To produce thousands of 16-page brochures requires fast and accurate printing presses. Clearly, desktop printing, with 50-100 pages per minute, is not really an option in terms of cost, quality and speed. Hence, when you need large volumes of brochures or catalogs to be printed (more than 250), it is a good idea to let the professionals handle the job for you!

I have to admit, before meeting with my printer, I was rather foolish in thinking that the cheap copies at Staples, Kinko’s and the like were great for bigger jobs that my colour laser couldn’t handle. Boy was I wrong…. My printer opened my eyes with advice on printing and a print quality that I still talk about weeks later, all at a price lower than print shops, ink-jets, and laser printers!

There are several things you need to consider in choosing the commercial printer for your particular print job. Perhaps one of the things you need to consider is the kind of printing process used by the printer. Do they use offset printing or maybe only digital technology?

After you have decided on which printing process to use, you now have to determine which printer has the right equipment. Find out the number of colors they can handle, is their plant ecologically oriented and what other equipment and services do they offer. Also, find out what kind of print job each printer specializes and what types of binding and folding equipments they use.

But aside from determining which kind of printing method and printing equipment is appropriate for you, it is also essential to know what kind of workers will work with the print job. Understand that although the printing company has the right equipment and printing technique it does not mean that the equipments and facilities will make great print jobs. Look for samples of work of these printers and focus more on their printing technique not merely on their design process. Also, look for clean colors, smooth text and focused images and graphics.

It is also a good idea to visit the printer to get a good feel of who you will be working with. And when you meet them face to face, ask them what you want to know about their service. You can ask questions such as how many presses they have and what are the capabilities of each; how long they have been in the business; what software they accept and what kind of payment options they have. It is essential to know this information ahead of time so you would not regret your choice later on. When you are able to find the right commercial printer, they will be able to make your printing job look great.

Let’s face it… Do you really want to cut corners on your marketing material when you don’t have too!? I didn’t think so!