How DIY Printing Fails to Produce Strong ROI

It’s time to start your next marketing campaign. This time, you want to try print advertising – after all, you’ve seen the numbers: print media is just as, if not more effective than digital advertising in many cases. But how can you get this project finished while saving money? Should you try DIY printing?

Every small business owner knows marketing has substantial costs. You might even think that outsourcing your commercial printing project to a professional printing company will end up costing you more money.

Thus, you decide to try do-it-yourself printing. At first, it seems to be going well – then disaster strikes. At the end of the project, you realize that you’ve actually wasted both time and money. How did this happen?

Today, let’s discuss the factors that run up your DIY printing costs.

What Drives Up DIY Printing Costs

Costs

• Paying your employees. How much time will your staff need to complete your printing project? Each one you involve will essentially be paid extra for handling the project. Should you really pay each of them an extra $20+ per hour of the project when you could have simply outsourced it for less money?
• Exorbitant ink costs. There’s no denying it – ink costs are seriously high these days. Whether you have a huge office copier or a small wireless printer in your office, keeping the ink full for every print job can run up some significant costs. If you need to print dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of items, you’re definitely going to run out of ink.

Time

• Time of printing. Not just how long it takes to actually print every item – we’re talking about the time it takes for your staff to organize and get the project finished. Normally, your employees are busy with the actual operations of your business itself. Tying them up for long hours to complete a marketing project is simply driving your payroll costs higher by the minute.
• Critical errors that delay your projects. Printers tend to jam or have errors that require time to fix. If you have a last-minute print project and your printer displays an error, you may be at your absolute wit’s end on how to fix it. If your goal was to save money on printing your marketing materials in-house, costs can quickly get out of hand unless you are absolutely certain your printers are unbreakable.

Unforeseen Events

• Paying for repairs. Unfortunately, printers are not Even the big offset and digital printing presses maintained by commercial printing companies have their issues. But when your office printer goes down for repairs as a result of overuse, good luck finishing your printing project without considerable costs – both to your finances and your project deadlines.
• Damaged reputation. If your small business printing project turns out worse than you expected, you still have to do something with all of that paper and ink. When you use those off-color flyers or poorly bound brochures to spread word about your business, would-be customers might see them as a turn-off. As a result, your reputation and indeed your bottom line may be damaged.

Leave it to the Professionals

If your goal is to impress your potential and current customers, there’s no need to dedicate your staff to swapping ink cartridges and worrying about whether you have enough paper – especially if the final product pales in comparison to what your competitors came up with. In order to maximize your return on investment, it’s best to leave it to a professional printing company like Linemark.

At Linemark, we have decades of experience working with businesses on their print marketing projects. For more information on how we can help you maximize ROI, contact a member of our team today.