Yet, the question remains – is it worth doing?  Many take the position that for the industry to try to stop/change the perception of print being antiquated is not achievable, while others feel that something has to be done – if for any reason just to make us feel good.  Well, PIA has taken on the role of making us feel good – and more.

Over the next 6-12 months, an upgraded website will be developed focusing on best practices, along with continued support of “Print In The Mix,” “Print Grows Trees,” and “ChoosePrint.org.” Regardless, of ones feelings to the value of this type of campaign, it can not be ignored that information can influence.  If every print producing company in the U.S. can influence 3 – 5 buyers, the needle will move in the right direction, but it has to start at the grassroots level.  If we don’t influence those local buyers, tell the fat lady to start warming up (thanks Dandy Don!).

Think of all the new careers which have been created because print is no longer in the realm of craftsman using archaic ways to reproduce the printed word.  Today anyone can be an author, publisher and printer.  No longer do we just listen to the opinions of a handful of individuals who control the newspaper publishing industry.  Anyone with a blog site has the power.  The genie has been released from its bottle.

Here’s one more point which provides additional food for thought.  Per Gartner, a leading IT research agency, there will be approximately 64 million tablets in use by the end of the year.  That number goes to over 900 million by 2016!

Yet, if one is to consider the opportunities which abound for entrepreneurs who can think beyond ink on paper, there are fortunes to be made.  Or at least a good living for the next few decades.

So what is the typical response to the rise of digital media and this aggressive adoption of mobile technology? To try to remind clients and prospects about how important print is, how campaigns are better with print, and how campaigns are flawed without it.

For this to work, former users of print, or novice users of print, have to be advised of their ignorance. Clearly, they are misinterpreting their own daily personal and business experiences with today’s media, smartphones, and other technologies. Their constant communications with co-workers, friends, and family in digital format, their enjoyment of e-books, websites, and benefits of e-commerce, and ability to find most anything in Google or Bing in seconds, all now done as second nature, are somehow lacking. It’s like telling them their lifestyle is stupid.

It also means that you are telling them that the decades of-ingrained cultural emphasis on reducing paper use as a responsible action and the belief that “junk mail” is wasteful (and possibly an invasion of privacy), which they have been taught for more than two decades, is not true. The cognitive dissonance this generates makes the “life is better with print and flawed without it” message ineffective and easily dismissed as an old industry flailing around as it tries to recapture a glorious past.

I do think that our “Value” campaigns are necessary — but they are not going to change the needle dramatically.  If we don’t demonstrate the strengths of print, no one else will.  Yet, as Webb challenges us in this article, we are not going to stop the inevitable – print is no longer the dominant visual communication tool.  Thus, for us to survive in this new world, we must understand the role print plays in communication – and more importantly for our survival – begin to create a new role for our businesses.

Time and time again we hear the stories of retailers eliminating their catalogs in order to reduce costs (and sometime to improve their “green” color) and then watch their sales drop.  The latest was JC Penney.  Their decision to stop printing their catalog may have cost them $400 million in sales per a recent “Dallas Morning News” article.  Per the article, they did not realize that shoppers were using the catalog to help them shop online.

Many marketers have become enamoured with mobile and social media and thus assume that print is “so last century,” and it is no longer effective.  They don’t realize buyers are not a homogeneous mix and must be reached through a variety of channels — including print.   JC Penny’s decision to exit catalog sales may have made sense in saving short-term dollars — but in the long-term, may have had been very damaging.  Time will tell.

Case in point is a recent “dust-up” we’re seeing in Texas with the Texas Comptroller’s office.  A field auditor has decided that USPS postage should be treated as transportation and is revenue to a mailing service provider – with no offsetting expense.  This is a 1% tax on the top line.  Not a pleasant thought if you are in the mailing business in Texas.  Oh, don’t forget that if one state starts using this methodology successfully, others will follow.

PIA MidAmerica is in the process of working with the taxpayer/mailer and his CPA to find a way to bring logic into this discussion with the Comptroller’s Tax Policy experts in Austin.  More to come.

The book, which is a very quick and straight-forward read, is titled “Business Transformation, A New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry.” The author is John Foley, Jr., and unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock for the past six months, you’ll recognize John as one of the industry’s voices on social media.

I thought John’s book was chockfull of information and more importantly contains the steps one needs to take to either re-invent their company, or to make modifications to be properly positioned in the visual communications industry (we used to call it print.).

Several studies recently reported by “News & Tech” indicate that online publishers are beginning to develop “for pay” solutions – which is crucial for the success of content on the web.  A report from FTI Consulting indicated that a landscape in which consumers will pay to receive news and information on their mobile devices — a reversal from how consumers perceive content on the Web.  The firm stated, “The data … suggests that the public’s desire for consuming content on-the-go will drive strong growth for e-reader friendly devices. And these models hint at a return to paid subscriptions and a print-like advertising model.”

Another study by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) stated that newspaper websites continue to dominate the Internet landscape.  Citing analysis conducted by comScore, NAA said that newspaper websites attracted 102.8 million unique visitors last  September, 61 percent of all adult Internet users. The survey also indicated that newspaper websites reach 55 percent of 25-to-34-year-olds and 73 percent of individuals in households earning more than $100,000 a year. “This data from comScore reinforces how newspaper publishers are leveraging original, high-quality content to build a powerful and engaged audience in the digital space,” said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm in a statement.

Yes, everything is changing — but there are still plenty of opportunities.  We just can’t keep looking under the same bushes.

Printing Industries of America (PIA) is going to take an aggressive role in working with its affiliates (there are 24 of us), and other organizations, to develop messaging to reinforce the “value of print.”  PIA developed material and a web site last year, but it was PIA Southern California which took the bull by the horns and created a serious campaign, which may very well be the one adopted by the national organization.

Although we may not see anything in the next month or two, this action will help focus the industry’s efforts to combat the insidious messaging that print is dead.  Congratulations to the Board of Directors. They stopped kicking the can down the road.

Their Every Door Deliver program might be a way to create more volume (more print?), but it does have a dark side as Cam Swegman  recently observed.  The program threatens the mail house.   And if you’re a printer, don’t ignore this new kid on the block.  There is a test campaign going on in several cities (Austin was one of them) in which the USPS acts as the “print provider,” or at least as a broker.

With all these competitors, one would think that it’s the end of the world as we knew it.  Yes, it is if we continue to operate as “normal.”  No, if we look as this as an opportunity to sell our differentiation.

What is it that your firm can do better than FedEx Office?  The USPS?  Staples?  InnerWorkings?

There are more than likely a multitude of things your firm can do much better and effectively.  One of the constant complaints I hear from print buyers is that when dealing with the “big boxes” is that they lack knowledge of print — and that should be one of the first differentiators which needs to be pitched to clients.   Just because you can buy your stamps or office supplies at the “big box,” it doesn’t mean they understand how to solve the customer’s communication/print problem — and that is a BIG difference between the “newbies” and the “old timers.”