This article was first published in the September 2021 issue of Australian Printer, authored by Konica Minolta Australia production and industrial print product marketing manager Tatjana Ferguson

The traditional print market in Australia is declining, as is the global market, as a result of factors including increasing digitalisation of media and advertising as well as the impact of COVID-19, resulting in reduced marketing spend and budgets for organisations.

Print market sectors that continue to experience growth include labels, packaging and wide format as demand for these print applications has increased as a result of the need for COVID messaging and consumer demand for information. Industry market sectors such as food and beverage, pharmaceutical and health continue to drive demand for print.

Global supply chain challenges are also resulting in more demand for local manufacturing along with demand for local print applications.

Post-COVID, a more open environment is expected to create great opportunities for surviving companies in the medium- to long-term. As this happens, there will be fewer low-value items printed, with an emphasis on higher quality and embellishment effects that add value and interest to products.

The ‘unboxing’ trend is something that print service providers (PSPs) will also need to focus on as consumers are purchasing goods online more often and that entire experience needs to be enhanced.

With print being an effective way of communicating and the print industry by nature being a very visual industry, some print businesses have started to think more about how to add value and capability to their business longer term.

PSP’s need to able to differentiate their product offer in order to stand out from the crowd. Buyer decisions are increasingly impacted by print, so PSPs now need to ensure that the messaging gets across to them in the quickest and most attention-grabbing way.

Marketers and brand owners are looking for their brand messages to stand out with special effects, such as spot gloss and clear dimensional printing, with a shine and tactile feel that lifts packaging and documents to a new level.

These effects are possible using traditional methods but are time-consuming and not cost effective – particularly for short-run jobs.

The MGI range of hardware, such as the 3D One and 3D Evo, offers options for introducing new products or services for print applications such as print embellishment on 2D pre-printed output with inkjet technology and using clear inks cured with ultraviolet (UV) light or foil effects making it possible to create real added value for print providers.

The baseline is that PSPs should not position themselves as just another commodity print supplier. They need to position themselves as a solution or full-service provider and as a business partner that helps clients achieve their business goals of being more efficient and more cost-effective.

Understanding what a PSP’s end customer wants or needs is critical in having a strong value-add strategy. If a PSP is not doing what a customer wants, then the activity is not value-adding. Being able to identify value add, non-value add and wasteful activity is the first step towards achieving the highest customer satisfaction with the least amount of waste.

Differentiation and personalisation is currently the key to developing a strong brand for both companies and individuals. Some strategies include:

• Putting some focus on being innovative with products or solutions that help to create the ‘wow factor’ and exceed customer expectations
• Understanding the best way to market or promote a product offer to customers
• Ensuring that you have a good web presence and spend time developing your marketing
• Looking at how you can build better relationships with your customers with more consultative selling skills
• Reconsidering how to promote your business (e.g. the use of social media platforms and other online tools to generate engagement with a younger, more digitally-savvy generation of print users)

This would enable the PSP to create their own niche capability in the market, which should be flexible and adaptable to changing market needs.

For smaller PSPs that can’t afford an extensive value-add strategy, they should consider partnering with a company who offers different services to theirs so that one can benefit from increased revenue opportunities while the other builds the volume for the required investment to add the capability in-house.

Service and support is also necessary to have these strategies implemented correctly. At Konica Minolta Business Solutions Australia, we partner with our customers to come up with the right solutions for their business now and into the future. We constantly look for ways to help our customers add additional capability and bring value to what they do with hardware and business solutions.

We can also help PSPs by putting them in touch with other service providers that have the capability should we determine that they don’t have volumes and need to build it up. We are always happy to help and put them in touch with people that we know and don’t conflict from a market perspective.

Moving forward, other areas of value add to consider include: trends in customisation and personalisation, automation, new and innovative print effects and substrates, in-house marketing services and graphic design services for a full service offering, just in time printing and fulfilment for reduce wasted material and reduction in warehousing/storage costs and administration overheads, track and trace services and other initiatives such as personalised URLs for tracking of the customer journey adding value for clients.

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