Digital print more cost-effective than litho

BDA has considered the advantages to marketers of digital print over lithographic.

Digital is being hailed as a revolution for small business' print marketing: compared to litho, digital is quick, often cheaper and can deliver messages personalised to your customers' interests.

Why is digital printing different to lithographic? Traditional litho 'offset' printing requires the creation of a plate for every print, which is then used to transfer the image via a rubber blanket onto the paper.

Litho is great for printing thousands of catalogues, magazines and books at a relative low cost.

But its cost is less attractive when you are only after a few hundred brochures and flyers.

Digital printers, on the other hand, do not require the creation of a plate.

Instead they use software to render digital images directly onto the press, bypassing the need for an expensive plate altogether.

This offers numerous benefits.

Without the need to create a plate for every image, small businesses can print small quantities of brochures, flyers and business cards cheaply.

There are already a few web-to-print businesses (such as moonpig.com and lulu.com) that have sprung up to capitalise on the low cost of small, customised print runs.

Each litho print run takes a long time to set up.

Digital presses, however, can be set up quickly and are capable of enabling next-day, or even same-day delivery.

The elimination of a plate, and shorter make-ready, means you also do not need all the other printing materials and waste that go along with them.

So you no longer have chemicals, ink and paper filling up your bin, and because you only print what you need, less chance of obsolescence.

Some digital printing machines are even designed with their own recyclability in mind.

Every print can be customised to include unique content, such as the customer's name, personalised URL and relevant images.

Personalising marketing helps improve the response rate because people are more likely to engage with content that is relevant to their interests.

Litho, on the other hand, only allows a static 'one-size fits all' message per print run.

The quality of digital printers is rapidly improving, and is almost indistinguishable from traditional litho.

Their reliability is also getting better, and eventually they will be just as consistent, and competitive, at long print runs too.

Digital printing puts one-to-one marketing into customers' hands Digital print has opened up print marketing to small businesses by making it cost effective to deliver timely, relevant and personalised messages.

This is the type of marketing weary consumers are crying out for, so digital print technology has arrived at just the right time.

Litho still has a role to play in printing mass-produced materials.

But for fast, cost-effective and personalised one-to-one print marketing, you have to go digital.

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