DIY Marketing Kit
by Angus Kidman, Dynamic Business
When Phoenix Freight, based in Sydney's Botany, recently decided to upgrade its printer, operations manager Matt Vella was keen to purchase a colour model.
In part, that decision was driven by basic economics for the privately owned international freight company, founded in 1988, and now with 12 permanent staff. "This is our second Lanier multi-function machine," Vella says. "The first was just a black and white unit. As it drew closer to the unit requiring replacement, we looked at the colour option and there really wasn't a lot of difference in price. It was a no-brainer to go for the colour unit. There wasn't much difference in cost per month."
An equally important incentive, however, was the ability to move much of the company's promotional printing needs away from professional printers. "We looked at the opportunity for us as a small to medium sized company to do a lot of our printing in-house," Vella says. "Like any other company, we've looked to printing companies for printing our business cards, letterheads, company profiles, flyers and brochures, which of course can cost a lot of money."
A particular concern is the minimum order requirements that apply at most commercial printing establishments. "Generally speaking, you can't do them in small quantities."
Shifting to an in-house colour machine - in this case, a Lanier D335c printer, copier and fax - makes it possible to produce small or single-run items on the premises at a cost comparable to that charged by a printer. While falling colour ink prices have played a role in this kind of transition, Vella argues that it's the advances in quality that have been the most critical factor. "The print quality is absolutely exceptional. It really looks as though what we've printed has a professional finish."
Phoenix Freight prints most of its documents using standard A4 photocopy paper, which Vella says brings huge cost advantages. "From a sales and marketing point of view, you want to keep all our costs within reason. To achieve that, you really need to look at standard size paper."
Most printers currently sold for business use in Australia are multi-function devices, like that used by Phoenix Freight, which combine printing, scanning (and hence photocopying) and faxing. These are ideal for companies considering producing their own material, since the scanner can be used for acquiring images while the printer is used for the eventual output.
Entry-level machines generally use inkjet technology, while more expensive models utilise laser, which is cheaper for large print runs and produces faster results. However, higher-end inkjet systems can still produce very acceptable results.
Beyond the ability to provide high quality output in colour, the most important consideration in pure printing terms is paper handling ability. The cheapest systems may only be capable of holding a couple of dozen sheets of paper, while pricier printers can automatically collate and (at the very high end) even staple documents. Such an approach might be overkill if your main marketing output is single-page A4 flyers.
For businesses with particularly volatile pricing or constantly changing product lines, being able to reprint brochures on demand enables information to always be up to date without risking incorrect details being distributed. However, for Phoenix that's a secondary consideration.
"We do have the odd special - we might whip up a flyer and send it out to the clients," Vella says. "But generally speaking, our flyers and brochures and our company profile don't really change."
Nonetheless, the space savings can be considerable. "For us the advantage of doing a small print run or doing one print when a client walks in off the street is huge. We don't have to have a special room where we store thousands of documents."
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