Now that you’ve had a chance to get back to your routine after the holidays, it’s time to get down to business. Welcome to the 4th installment of our series 7 Things Not to Say to Your Printer!
For those of you who are just joining us, this blogging exercise tackles your tough questions to help ease the pain of your future print projects. So far we’ve discussed how design impacts your ROI, color issues, and image resolution. Today we’re going to talk about a problem you didn’t know existed—making comparisons between printers.
You don’t like it when customers talk about you in relation to your competitors, and we’re no different in that respect. Still, I’m not bringing this to your attention because we’re butthurt—it’s a BIG mistake to view all printers in monochrome because then you can’t see our true colors. And this egregious error can take a chunk out of your wallet with reprinting costs.
But My Other Printer Did It This Way…
Look, we know you’ve been seeing other printers. We’re ok with having an open relationship with you, as long as you respect the boundaries. As I said in the intro, it’s in your best interest to focus on us when you’re working with us as opposed to those side printers you’ve been messing around with. Let me explain what I mean through an unfortunate example.
One day I walked into Alex’s (our manager) office to ask him a question. He signaled to wait as he was on the phone with a customer. I only heard 1 side of the conversation, yet I quickly understood what was going on. An irate customer called about her business cards; she insisted that we messed up her file. Alex calmly explained that we don’t modify files without notifying clients, and asked her if she downloaded our product template. His question made her fly off the handle—she insisted that her designer used our template to create her artwork, and that’s why she was furious with us.
Only her designer didn’t use our template.
I watched as Alex opened her file and uncovered the first layer in Illustrator. Sure enough, he discovered a branded guide from a well-known competitor. The measurements were not the same as ours, hence the ranting and raving. Of course, this whole problem could’ve been avoided by simply downloading the template straight from the source—us.
4 Ways Every Printing Company is Unique
Sadly, we run into the above dilemma on the regular. For this reason, I feel the need to explain why you shouldn’t expect all printers to do things the same way. Here are 4 things every printer does in its own special way:
Templates– This applies to pre-made designs you got off Graphic River as well as blank product templates. For the sake of your budget and deadlines, always make sure you download free templates from the printer who’ll be running the presses. You can find our template collection here.
Products and Services- Let me put it this way…have you ever walked into Walmart and asked about an item you saw in a Target ad? You wouldn’t do that because Walmart and Target carry different stuff. Sure, some of their inventories overlap. But you’d never expect them to be identical. Although printing companies may appear similar on the surface, I assure you, you won’t find another company exactly like ours or any of our competitors for that matter.
Procedures and Policies- Just as printers don’t all offer the same products; we each have our own sets of rules for everything from prepress checks to quality control. So it’s a good idea to ask our customer service staff about our order process instead of assuming that we do exactly what you’re used to from your side printer or ex-printer.
Capabilities and Specialties- while many printers aim for the one stop shop feel, others cater to smaller niche markets. For example, it pains me to say that we don’t do letterpress. We do offer a wide variety of business card options, including plastic cards, custom shapes, and mini cards. Since we have an in-house creative team, we can also design your cards for you. Not every printer doubles as a design studio, which illustrates my point.
Company Culture- In case you can’t tell by the content on this blog, we’re a little bit funky. We’re creative people, and we’re here to inspire your marketing campaigns. We’re also a multi-cultural company who celebrates diversity. Other printers don’t have the same shall we say personality, though. They prefer to keep things formal and corporate. That’s their gig, and we wish them lots of luck in their no fun zones.