Digital Publishing
1 min read

Digital print: the emerging opportunity for magazines & catalogues

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Speakers at Digital Print: The Emerging Opportunity Magazines & Catalogues in the US explored how improvements in digital printing technology have raised the quality of digital printed pages while the price to print digital is declining. For advertisers the value is clear: the ability to reach the right people with a high-impact print experience is especially enticing.

At the event, printers and equipment manufacturers presented case studies where they’ve worked with magazine and catalog publishers to develop targeted and personalised publications.

Keynote speaker Marco Boer of IT Strategies kicked off the evening with a look at trends in print publications from now until 2020. Looking at the numbers of magazine and catalog pages printed in North America is jaw dropping. Marco predicts that the total printed page volume for magazines and catalogs will fall by about 60% from 2007 to 2020.

Digital printing remains a specialty in terms of page volume, just 1.3% of all pages printed by 2020. But as Boer put it, specialty doesn’t mean digital printing is inconsequential. That’s because digital printed pages present opportunities for publishers to capture new revenue and develop new products.

The biggest takeaway from the event was that digital printing is not replacing the offset-printed publications magazine publishers and catalogers already produce. Rather, digital printing is allowing these publishers to create new print and advertising products and create new value for readers and advertisers. As personalisation becomes the norm in digital content, consumers and advertisers will come to expect similar experiences in print. This is an opportunity that publishers and catalogers cannot ignore.

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