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Ricoh launches web-to-print and colour management for Ipex

Ricoh has announced a raft of new products that it will launch at Ipex in May, designed to establish its presence as a major player in the commercial production digital market. 

Products include the NowPrint JDF-ready scaleable web-to-print system, available as software-as-a-service, and the Ready4Print Colour Server automated colour management system delivering consistent colour to a defined standard (industry-wide or customer-defined). Ipex will also be the first outing for Ricoh's new light-production colour digital presses, the C720 and C720S, both Fogra-certified to ISO 12647. Ricoh will also introduce the Pro 1357 and 1357EX monochrome devices for the transactional market. 

Ricoh production printing director Graham Moore also announced the Ipex launch of Ricoh's new Business Driver programme for commercial and corporate print customers. The programme offers white papers, ROI tools, market reports; e-learning modules on new technologies; local and international events and webinars in what Moore called "a truly value-added programme". 

Find out more about Ricoh's Ipex programme of launches

Search for Web-to-print systems/job submission systems in the PrintSpeak directory

Ricoh's Moore: new Business Driver programme offers 'a truly value-added programme'
Ricoh's Moore: new Business Driver programme offers 'a truly value-added programme'

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from the editor

Karen Charlesworth
Everyone’s loyal to loyalty: Karen Charlesworth wonders if there’s scope for smart printers to start their own loyalty clubs
According to a study published by InfoPrint (the joint venture between Ricoh and IBM), loyalty clubs are big business. An audit of over 700 consumers and 600 marketeers revealed that 79% of the former love their loyalty club and go out of their way to spend money with the organisation in question, while a similar 80% of the latter are committed to maintaining and developing their loyalty club initiative. So everyone’s loyal to loyalty. 

The more detailed findings of the study make particularly interesting reading for any printer bent on taking up personalisation in the next couple of years. Viz: nearly 60% of loyalty club members in the survey said they wanted more compelling personalised benefits, individualised deals and targeted services, as a reward for steering their business to the club operator. This wish also expressed itself in a list of top complaints: that communications and services were not personalised or targeted specifically for members. Put all that together with a wish to receive information and updates electronically, and you have a definitive requirement for multi-channel variable data print within this market. 

InfoPrint’s VP of global marketing, Sandra Zoratti, says that the consumers are issuing a clear warning to marketeers: “Give me relevant communications that reflect my history and connections to you, or I will go elsewhere with my business.” She further reckons that smart marketeers will respond “by taking what they know about customer wants, preferences and behaviours to be more targeted, efficient and relevant in their messaging to improve response rates and increase customer gratification and purchase intent.” 

I’m interested in these findings, partly because they confirm a market trend that savvy printers have long suspected – that marketing is heading inexorably down the variable print road, and any printer involved in marketing print (and who isn’t?) should be looking into variable data print as a matter of urgency. 

I’m also interested because loyalty isn’t just for printers’ customers: it’s for printers themselves as well. Recently I received an email from a certain online print organisation (from which last year I bought personalised Christmas cards) inviting me to place an order for any one of a limited range of products that weren’t unrelated to my original order – printed envelopes, for instance, and postcards. Just to make the offer even more tempting, this email conferred on me a 10% ‘loyalty discount’ and free p&p. 

I bet just about every printer in the UK has some kind of record of their smaller customers’ recent jobs. It might be very fancily tied up in an MIS CRM module, or it might be drawn from the sales order processing software; it might even be stored in a Rolodex. So what about a February special on A5 flyers? Sort through the recent sales info and find those 100 customers who ordered flyers in the last year. Chances are the original order will have been used up and your email or mailer might provide a timely reminder. 

This is a model drawn from the business-to-consumer sector, and true nuff, it isn’t going to work for every printer, particularly those with a preponderance of larger customers who may not appreciate the pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap ethos implied by this approach. However, for those printers (and I’ll bet it’s the majority) who produce some proportion of work for smaller businesses, a targeted, personalised approach may pay dividends. 
Karen Charlesworth
Publisher, PrintSpeak
emailkaren@printspeak.co.uk