Green Options

Most of us have heard the popularly cited statistics that given the choice between two similar products, 83% of consumers will chose those that are “environmentally friendly” and will pay more for them.

According to the DoubleClick study, not only are consumers interested in green products and companies, but nearly half are willing to pay at least 5% more for them.

It’s not a new study. It came out in April, but [...]

In my “Greening Print Marketing” posts, I’ve looked at a wide variety of reasons (and ways) for marketers to see their print marketing projects as green. But what about the flip side? Why do printers market their green initiatives?

The number one reason seems to be a reflection of their own personal commitment. In a recent survey by What They Think (Source: “Economic Outlook Webinar with Dr. Joe Webb” 3/26/08), 43% of printers said that their green initiatives were “more important to our company than to our customers at this time.” Only 8% felt that it was more important to their customers than it was to them.

Thirty-five percent felt that promoting their environmental sustainability initiatives was good for their business image. Nearly one-quarter (24%) saw it as a necessary cost of doing business in today’s climate.

Are you ready for the holiday mail season?  Maybe this is the year to trim your DM waste.  The fundamental problem is that direct mail marketing is inherently inefficient. 44% of all direct mail is thrown in the trash without ever being opened and that which is opened only yields an average of a 2.77% response.  So, if you want to get 1,000 customers to respond to your direct mail piece, you have to mail, on average, 36,101 pieces of mail.  Multiply that by millions of customers and millions of companies and you can see the problem. The good news is that a March 2008 Aberdeen Group study found that direct mail waste reduction is an area where “environmental concerns and shareholder interests coincide.” But, you may already know this. They also found that 40% of companies said direct mail waste reduction was one of the top two areas being focused on for improving eco-friendly business practices.

The goal is to achieve the greatest precision with the lowest number of pieces mailed, but there a lot of other benefits. You can save money and enhance customer satisfaction which will in turn improves customer loyalty, purchase behavior and profitability. Here’s 9 ways:

#1: Maintain good list hygiene. Updating your mailing list to remove unwanted, duplicate and undeliverable addresses regularly and thoroughly is a cheap, quick and effective way to reduce waste. There are several ways to verify mailing lists and all outside list mangers are able to perform this function or you can buy your own address verification software. You will mail fewer pieces and, under some circumstances, lower your mailing rates. Consider offering incentives (such as the offer of a discount on their next purchase) for notification of duplicate mailings and incorrect addresses.

I got a surprise this month. I was writing on “green” issues related to inkjet ink, and much of what I expected to write went out the window.

In the world of offset printing, the difference between solvent-based inks and water-based inks matters—a lot. In the world of toner-based inks (digital inks), on the other hand, there really is no difference. As I’ve written here before, this is because nearly all toner-based inks are dry toner inks, which are solvent-free. Of those inks (liquid toner) that do contain solvent, it’s such a mild form that the practical difference is negligible.

But on the issue of inkjet, the issues are completely different. Solvent vs. water inks matters very little, but for completely different reasons.

Presstek, the inventor of chemistry-free platemaking, is offering a free white paper entitled, “Growing Your Business by Going Green.” The paper speaks to both the environmental and economic benefits that can be realized by in-house print shops or third-party print providers who adopt the practice of “green” printing. This is also relevant to marketers who are looking for information to help them select a print provider that will help them meet their green marketing goals.

Despite the broad range of topics covered, the white paper is largely designed to discuss the economic and environmental benefits of Presstek DI digital offset presses. Most of my posts involve the business and marketing models relate to toner-based (digital) printing, but I’ve discussed the green benefits of the DI process in my posts before. This white paper goes into far more detail than I can cover here.

Like toner-based printing, DI printing eliminates many of the chemicals used in the print production process, although it is an offset process—it looks like traditional offset printing. But compared to a traditional offset press (comparisons are made to both 500-run and long-run quantities), it eliminates waste from

• press developer,
• press replenisher,
• press finisher/gum,
• fountain solution
• fountain substitute
• waste water

Many printers say they are “green” or “eco-friendly” because they print using soy inks, are FSC-certified, or print on recycled paper. But if you want an example of a printer who is really serious about its stewardship of the environment, take a look at Green Printer.

Using sources from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Green Printer estimates that it helped its customers save 74,645 [...]

This week, everybody is watching the stock market and talking about the economy, but I want to do a little reality check here. Other than tweaking our portfolios, there isn’t much we can do about it. Was the bail-out the right decision? Was it not the right decision? Talking about it makes us feel better—as if it gives us some kind of control—but the reality is, it doesn’t. Why not take all that nervous energy and channel it into something really productive? A place where we can make a difference right away?

Did you know that by making some basic changes in your document management and print marketing, you can reduce your carbon footprint, use fewer trees, use less petroleum, and improve your bottom line at the same time? In today’s time of financial crisis, that ought to get any company’s attention. It starts, not with the paper or ink you spec, but with the fundamental way you print at your documents.

By utilizing today’s digital production technologies, you can move to document management models that have a major impact on the environment. By printing shorter runs—even for high-quality, four-color documents—you eliminate warehousing costs and the cost of outdated print, but on the environmental side, you avoid cutting down trees for nothing. Every time a book, a pamphlet, a flyer goes out of date and gets thrown in the trash, you just contributed to needless deforestation.

By making smarter use of your database—say, mailing to only the top 10% of your customer base—you reduce the amount of printed material you use. If you combine it with smart use of print personalization, you could earn even more revenues than on a larger static mailing.

Some great examples can be found in a new report on digital-printing-driven marketing models entitled “Digital Printing: Transforming Business and Marketing Models,” released yesterday.

Wall Street is in financial crisis. Individual investors are reeling. The world is watching. If ever there were a time to get serious about our world stewardship, it’s now.

While we’re used to thinking along broad, expansive lines such as international policy and national priorities, the fact is, there are changes you and I can make in our daily lives to make things better, including in the world of marketing. We don’t have to change the world. We just have to change our world.

That’s what “Greening Print Marketing” is about.

Along those lines, I got a press release from Xerox today. The company has released a new series of papers and tools to help companies reduce the environmental impact of printing in their organizations. This starts a comprehensive program of papers, resources, and Web tools to help customers identify the right paper, the right supplies, and the right way to print with the environment in mind.

Earlier this week, I talked about printing with recycled paper and how the decision on which stock to select goes beyond merely “recycled” to include other factors, including the percentage of postconsumer waste content and whether or not the paper is elemental chlorine-free.

Printing with recycled paper ought to be a no-brainer. Not only do you save trees, but according to Friends of the Earth, the production process used to create recycled paper uses up to 70% less energy than for virgin pulp. It also requires fewer chemicals.

Some marketers sniff at recycled paper, however, because it’s not quite as bright as virgin stock. Yet, one could make the argument that the positive social image associated with recycling can easily offset any loss in brightness—if that was ever really important at all.

More Reasons to Use Recycled

If the points above aren’t enough to overcome the “brightness” appeal, here are just a few more reasons to favored recycled stock. This list is compliments of Barefoot Press of Raleigh, NC.

If you want to “green” your print marketing, one way to do it is to print using digital production printing. How is digital production “green”?

There are three types of digital print production:

• Dry toner (xerography)
• Liquid toner (used exclusively in the HP Indigo presses)
• Continuous inkjet (used both for light production and high-volume presses)

Because of the number of variables that impact the lifecycle of a printed product, and because of the strides being made by offset printers to green their operations, it is difficult—if not impossible—to make a categorical statement that “digital production is greener than offset.” However, there are some unequivocal factors about digital print that will please those looking to become more environmentally sensitive in their production and management of print.

The trash can…or not. Although many marketers consider the today’s applications driven by dry toner, liquid toner, and inkjet digital printing to be the technology’s greatest asset, the “green-ness” of the technology is a nice bonus, too.

This is important to marketers because environmental printing is no longer just good social responsibility. It’s good marketing. Companies with “green” programs have a marketing advantage through positive association. By utilizing environmentally responsible printing practices, this gives you a nice plug for your business.

How is digital printing “green”?

1. The output technology is socially responsible. 1:1 printing is output from digital presses. These presses use no process chemicals (although liquid ink presses and inkjet presses may use solvents in their ink formulations; dry toner presses do not). They use no film or plates. Start-up waste is minimal—10 sheets or less, compared to 100 or more sheets for most offset presses.

Although conventional wisdom is that digital inks are difficult to remove during the recycling process, this is outdated. An increasing number of digital press manufacturers are now promoting the de-inkability of their toners, even from recycled paper. This is true even of HP, whose liquid toner “ElectroInk” produces at or near offset-quality photographic quality but is suspended in a mild solvent, and even of high-speed inkjet presses like Kodak Versamark.