Canon has now published its full 2014 Insight Report entitled ‘Building your Future with Print’. This is the fifth in the series of Insight Reports commissioned by Canon to analyse the trends and opportunities for print.
Overall findings from an industry survey show that there is a healthy demand for print as a communications medium and little sign of decline over the past two years, with 62% of print and media buyers commissioning print for their communications campaigns. However, 80% of PSPs now recognise the need to change to meet the future needs of their customers – an increase of 8% since the first Insight report in 2008.
Conducted by an independent research consultancy, the survey centred around more than 550 telephone interviews with senior decision makers (275 commercial printers and CRDs, and 277 print and media buyers of differing sizes) across a wide range of sectors and from 25 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
According to the views of the print buyers, print still offers considerable value, possessing the unique ability to reflect quality, reach the more challenging ‘offline’ audiences and differentiate messaging from digital communication. However, with predictions of growth in digital and online media, and with 38% of buyers indicating a likely decrease in the use of print, PSPs will need to continue to work hard to promote the values of print to prevent migration to what is perceived by respondents to be more measureable and trackable ‘virtual’ alternatives.
While print buyers are broadly satisfied with their print providers – with 84% stating they meet their communications needs – there is still scope for greater customer engagement to improve business opportunities. Only 56% of print buyers feel they are made aware of new developments by their PSPs.
Despite some lack of education in the latest developments, awareness and use of digital print applications and services continues a strong upward trend, with short run publications, print-on-demand and web-to-print all witnessing continued growth, fuelled in part by cost and time pressures from the buyers.
Web-to-print has seen the greatest increase since the last Insight report, with a 50% growth since 2012, with almost one in three customers now using Web-to-print services. Both printers and customers acknowledge the benefits of Web-to-print offering greater convenience, speed and cost efficiencies and it clearly offers business opportunities for providers. However there is still a lack of awareness, with 39% of customers remaining unaware of the availability of Web-to-print services.
Equally compelling is the opportunity to expand service offerings into non-print media to complement their existing print communications. Today, 68% of print buyers use multi-channel communications, a significant rise of 10% in just two years. Canon’s 2012 ‘Bigger Picture’ report also highlighted print being used in 94% of multi-channel campaigns, making it the foundation on which virtual media can then be deployed. By contrast, only 20% of all PSPs offer multi-channel campaign co-ordination, indicating a clear gap between the help that print buyers want and need in developing their multi-channel campaigns and what their PSPs currently offer.
Perhaps one of the most interesting findings from the survey is that, despite 80% of commercial printers and CRDs recognising the need to change the way they operate, the majority still lack structured planning for the future. Only 48% of commercial printers and 32% of CRDs have a formal marketing or business development plan in place – and where one exists, only half review it on a regular basis.