Inkjet & Toner Response Rates Are Equivalent

[Bob Raus]

A recent Interquest study concludes that postcards printed in color on matte-finished paper using a high-speed inkjet printing system generated the same response rates as postcards printed on glossy stock using a high-quality toner-based printer for 62% less cost than toner-base digital printers. Key take aways from this study include:

• Reach twice as large a list of suspects on the same budget - or run additional campaign mailings for the same budget.

• Achieve the same, or greater profit margins than using toner-printers, while offering a lower cost alternative.

Marketers do not need to spend extra for high gloss, offset look-and-feel (via offset or toner) for direct marketing/mail. The industry needs to question traditional thinking when it comes to offset and higher cost toner-based printing processes.

Commercial printers and direct mail houses/print & mail facilities (fulfillment, etc.) can differentiate services provided and generate new and profitable revenue sources by offering inkjet for direct mail production.

**Marketers - are you listening?**

Bottom Line: The goal of marketing campaigns is high response rates at the lowest possible cost, NOT print quality. Learn more at OutputLinks - Mid-Volume Transaction Output

 

[overscan]

Have Riso dramatically reduced the ink costs that I saw with the original comcolor? When they launched the first model in the UK it way more expensive than the click of the DC12 I was running.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

A recent Interquest study concludes that postcards printed in color on matte-finished paper using a high-speed inkjet printing system generated the same response rates as postcards printed on glossy stock using a high-quality toner-based printer for 62% less cost than toner-base digital printers. Key take aways from this study include:

• 
  Reach twice as large a list of suspects on the same budget - or run additional campaign mailings for the same budget.

• Achieve the same, or greater profit margins than using toner-printers, while offering a lower cost alternative.

Marketers do not need to spend extra for high gloss, offset look-and-feel (via offset or toner) for direct marketing/mail. The industry needs to question traditional thinking when it comes to offset and higher cost toner-based printing processes.

Commercial printers and direct mail houses/print & mail facilities (fulfillment, etc.) can differentiate services provided and generate new and profitable revenue sources by offering inkjet for direct mail production.

**Marketers - are you listening?**

Bottom Line: The goal of marketing campaigns is high response rates at the lowest possible cost, NOT print quality. Learn more at OutputLinks - Mid-Volume Transaction Output

Does this mean that printing lower quality offset at a volume that is less expensive than ink jet would be the winner? Was this study based on variable printing or just printing a static image. Just curious.

 

[gordo]

To Bob Raus

I'm not so sure you can extract such value-statements from this "study."

"Printing cost" was based on per impression cost for supplies and maintenance, exclusive of paper, labor, amortization, and overhead. By not including some of the costs (e.g. paper, amortization, etc.) I'm not convinced that this is a fair cost comparison between inkjet and toner.

Interestingly NTERQUEST, Ltd. was commissioned by RISO, Inc. to conduct the study and RISO's product namesfeatures prominently in the study - but it was compared to an un-named full-color toner-based production copier/printer. Perhaps a different full-color toner-based would have been a better fit for this project.

Because offset was not included, I don't think it's appropriate to extrapolate its costs based on some un-named toner device. Also, I don't think that "quality" is simply defined by the glossiness of the substrate. Given the image contents of this particular mailer the fact that the paper was matte or glossy would have no impact. That may not be true of other types of imagery.

I agree that the goal of marketing campaigns is high response rates at the lowest possible cost, however there is nothing in the evaluation conducted by Interquest that says that print quality has a negative impact on print costs. It is also difficult, or impossible, to see this study as an objective evaluation of the production costs for inkjet and toner-based output devices.

To Erik: The report does not state whether the mailing used static or variable data - just that it was a survey sent to a targeted audience of marketing managers and executives from various industry sectors in the U.S.

What I found particularly interesting was that, despite receiving a $20 gift certificate from Amazon for filling out a very short online survey, they only got a less than 1% (0.75% actual) response rate from their targeted list! Just 794 responses out of 10,585 mailings. One hesitates to think what the response rate would have been without the $20 carrot.

Now what does that say about the effectiveness of junk - I mean - direct mail?


best, gordon p

 

[Bob Raus]

Hi Overscan:
RISO offers two different cost per print/copy price models. One is all inclusive of service and inks and the second includes service only - whereby you pay for ink as it is consumed. Each model is priced by actual monthly print volumes in tiers. Many customers with limited coverage applications choose the service only model and buy ink as they consume it while others buy the ink/service model if they expect applications with higher coverage overall. It's best to get pricing from your local RISO sales team or dealer in order to insure accurate local pricing.

For this study, the 5.5" x 8.5" post cards cost 1.8 cents (USA) for service and ink (click) total for both sides. Although the design in the study did not include any variable data (except the mailing address/bar codes) - a similar cost per card can be expected for this design if it included some targeted variable data as well.

 

[Bob Raus]

Hi Erik,

Good question and let me take a shot here at answering it. Lower quality and less expensive offset produced postcards might indeed cost less per card. You would need to also then add in the cost for the secondary process of addressing including the handling, labor, scheduling and management of that process for a true apples-to-apples price comparison since the RISO ComColor applies all that data in a single pass operation.

For this study, the 5.5" x 8.5" post cards cost 1.8 cents (USA) for service and ink (click) total for both sides. Although the design in the study did not include any variable data (except the mailing address/bar codes) - a similar print cost per card can be expected for this design if it included some targeted variable (text) data as well. Of course we would expect to see the response rates increase with more targeted variable data as well.

 

[Bob Raus]

Hi Gordon,

Good questions and I am pleased to provide more information for your consideration. We purposely excluded the paper, labor, amortization, etc. in order to focus on the cost per print only. Paper, labor, utilities and purchase prices vary by region/location and channel, so there is no good way to normalize this.

The production toner printer was a Konica-Minolta bizhub PRO 6501. Interquest chose this type of printer because it is a popular and cost competitive device that produces very good quality output. When considering the amortization question above the RISO ComColor 9050 (150 ppm) costs ~$50k with the RIP, while the KM (at 65 ppm) costs somewhat more – so actually product amortization would play into RISO’s favor. Also (as long as you brought it up), please note that the RISO ComColor has a REALISTIC duty cycle of 500,000 impressions per month, while the Konica Minolta has a RATED monthly duty cycle of 300,000.

I think you argument for Glossy vs. Matte paper stocks is accurate if somewhat outside the norm for the industry. Most commercial printers and/or marketing executives have been brought up to believe that glossy look-and-feel provides better results. In fact most marketing executives that look at the RISO output are quick to state that the image quality is insufficient to drive results – because it is not glossy. This study confirms that wide-spread and long-held belief is INCORRECT.

While the study was commissioned by RISO, all factors, decisions, data and processes were managed independently by Interquest. RISO executives defined the study parameters but had no visibility into the study until the results were tabulated. Of course some people are naturally suspicious so they can and will question the integrity of these studies. My suspicion is that these might be the same people who still cling to a Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory too.

Your comment about the effectiveness of direct mail is valid in this case. Please note that we wanted to avoid any extra factors that could’ve affected the results one way or another. We purposely did not include variable data and, for example did not make this part of a multi-channel or multi-media campaign to try and increase response rates. If we did, we would certainly expect higher response rates.

Great comments! Thank you all, and please keep 'em coming! Bob Raus

 

[Bob Raus]

One more thing:

David Davis from Interquest will be presenting the deatils and results of this study on a WhatTheyThink.com webinar tomorrow, March 24 at 2:00 PM eastern time. Sign up via this link, and/or watch the recorded webinar afterwards. WhatTheyThink Webinar: Inkjet, toner and reader response rates: Does print quality affect results?

 

[Ryanf550]

Bob,

I was reading the report and noticed that the post cards were printed 2up on 8.5x11.

For the same printing cost they can be done 4up on the 6501 (and most printers in that class of printers). I think that most printers have an over-sized click charge and can run 11x17 for the same click as 8.5x11, I know that I can.

Also, you said that click charges were based on print volumes in tiers with the RISO. Was the pricing for the clicks on the 2 printers based on the same print volumes? 0.049 click seem kind of high for a 6501.

Ryan

 

[Bob Raus]

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for posting these great questions.

- The 4.9 cents click charge for the Konica-Minolta bizhub PRO 6501 were taken from Larry Hunt's Color Copy News, Vol 19, No. 5, November 2009. In that issue, Larry lists color click at $.049 and b/w click at $0.12 on a 5-year contract. As an update - in the March 2010 version (Vol 19, No 9) he lists prices for the same product at $.045 color and $.009 b/w. It appears prices may be dropping a bit, but I would guess that overall the $.049 is still a valid average +/-.

- Both RISO and Konica-Minolta offer a single-click pricing option for 11x17. RISO's full-up click for volumes of greater than 150,000 per month is as low as $0.032 for some models. At over twice the speed, no slow downs for thicker stocks, and a verifiable duty cycle of 500,000 per month, the RISO ComColor is a workhorse that P4P providers can leverage to grow business by 1) doubling throughput, 2) offering equivalent response rates and 3) lower per-piece selling prices - at the same or higher profit margins.