Saratoga Springs, NY – As companies cope with increased prices in postage and paper, the print industry continues to forge ahead. So said J. Joel Quadracci, president/CEO of Sussex, WI-based printer Quad/Graphics, during the final session at the New England Mail Order Association Conference on Friday.
“Ink on paper will be a force to be reckoned with for a time to come,” Quadracci told the breakfast audience. “In a multichannel world, ink on paper will play a much more aggressive role.”
Quadracci conceded that continued price increases for paper, postage, and print manufacturing burden printing and catalog companies alike. “We continue to be under cost pressure,” he said. “It’s going to be a constant challenge.” But he added that the power of print is alive and well. “All is not lost, because print is becoming more dynamic,” he said.
“It does all start with data,” he continued. Instead of a cataloger asking a printer, “What is your cost per thousand?” Quadracci said the more pertinent question is “What is my cost per response?”
“When you look at a multichannel world, people wonder where they should spend their money,” he said. “They should spend their money across all channels and use all the different channels as one cohesive unit.” Data analytics and “getting to the top of the pyramid to a true one-to-one variable” are integral aspects of today’s multichannel world.
And deliverability of mailings should never take a backseat in the priority department. “Everyone knows that dead people don’t respond very well,” Quadracci quipped. “Getting to the top, to living and breathing data is what it’s all about.”