Loading

Yesterday I wrote a short article about the WhatTheyThink acquisition by APTech, which led to some interesting observations. One comment was from Paul Sherfield from the UK, who raised a very important question and a topic that we constantly discuss here at INKISH.

Why are PSPs not using the wealth of resources available from vendors, consultants, and media?

By Editor Morten B. Reitoft.

Intergraf represents European federations, representing over 100,000 printing companies. No European media reaches 100,000 companies or even a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of people working in our industry. I don't even think the federations reach the companies with information that, to some extent, is needed for operating a modern printing company.

Printing companies, of course, must focus on their customers, their employees, and their operations, but what about topics such as environment, sustainability, digital transformation, workflow/automation, newest and latest technology, and articles, statistics, films, podcasts, etc., that support growth. Where do the owners get their information from? We don't see an overwhelming number of attendees at tradeshows; the circulations of trade media are surprisingly low, and webinars and events, in general, are not reaching large numbers either?

I was looking into some of the numbers available on trade media - and media like 'Druck & Medien' (DE) only has a print run of 6,500 magazines covering the entire DACH region. Print Week (UK) only prints 8,500 copies, and you can continue looking at the publically available media plans that uncover surprisingly low circulations. And I am not judging their importance and reach, just wondering how the more than 100,000 printing companies in Europe get themselves updated?

The most apparent reason PSPs don't use the available resources must be quality. If the quality produced by trade media, organizers of events and webinars, reports- and research, white papers, and of course, and unfortunately, also the content we create was great, essential, and something that could help growth, wouldn't we have a larger audience?

The reason I started INKISH was for those exact reasons. I wanted to tell stories about PSPs so owners and managers could find inspiration and learn. We see INKISH growing, and though we still consider ourselves a small media in the global printing industry, we work hard on being extremely loyal to our audience. I got an email from Anthony Thirlby some weeks ago - and let me quote this and explain it.

"Afternoon sir…you well? Think watching some of the recent releases it would be very prudent to set up an open discussion on true evaluation of software, offset> Inkjet>indigo/digital as what I have been reading is completely incorrect on every level from you some of your partners / commentators…happy to financially assist in such a discussion. Let me know what you need to make it happen as currently it's 95% false what's being reported / positioned….enjoy the summer evening.."

by Anthony Thirlby

When I read above, I, of course, speculate on why this is the case. Do we - as media - chase the agendas set by the vendors? Or are we not in-depth enough with the real issues and challenges? Or is Anthony wrong, and the stories and opinions we raise right?

I honestly don't know. I don't know what Anthony refers explicitly to. Still, reading his comment, I can't help thinking about the many interviews and statements we have raised regarding whether Inkjet is finally ready to replace offset?

In general, we get a lot of good feedback from both vendors and PSPs about the content and the topics we discuss on INKISH.NEWS and INKISH.TV.

When we did a webinar last year about Inkjet - the total number of unique attendees was about 3,800. When we looked into the details, we identified 785 unique PSPs where the remaining were vendors, media, consultants, and some unidentified. When you develop webinars, you, of course, spend a lot of time in planning and marketing. Still, the channels promoting the content are typically the channels you have access to - like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, newsletters, and of course, INKISH - but still, we don't get the number of attendees, for example, FuturePrint does.

We have plans for how we hope to reach more PSPs - but it requires time and money, and it will take time to get there - but thank you, Paul Sherfield, for raising this. It's tremendously essential - so thank you!

Add/View comments for this article →
1 Comments
user

user

Paul Sherfield

Owner

Thank you and happy to help in any way?

Thu February 16th

Le Kodak Prosper 520 ul...

La valeur réelle en numérique n'est pas la technologie d'impression que vous choisissez. Le vrai différentiateur est entre vos oreilles !

Fri October 15th

Beaucoup de preuves ...

What The Papers Say-Week of October 11-By Nessan Cleary

Fri October 8th

L'Australie ressent ...

What The Papers Say-Week of October 4th-By Nessan Cleary

Fri October 1st

La couverture de cet...

What The Papers Say-Week of September 27th-By Nessan Cleary

Fri September 24th

Autres signes de cro...

What The Papers Say-Week of September 20th-By Nessan Cleary

Tue September 21st

The peak performance...

INKISH couvre l'événement, et ne peut pas attendre pour rencontrer l'industrie est peut-être le premier événement physique en Europe:-) ...

Fri September 17th

Il y a de bonnes nou...

What The Papers Say-Week of September 13-By Nessan Cleary

Sat September 11th

Questions relatives ...

What The Papers Say-Week of September 6th-By Nessan Cleary

Fri September 3rd

Cette semaine, les h...

What The Papers Say-Week of August 30th-By Nessan Cleary

Fri August 27th

Les chercheurs trouv...

What The Papers Say-Week of August 23rd-By Nessan Cleary