With breathtakingly tight budgets in nearly every business sector, you, like many printers, are often put in a very tight spot. You don’t have a choice; you have to focus on one thing—getting the order any way you can. It’s a do-or-die situation.
I admit, when your client has budget concerns, mentioning the words
premium paper seems like a death sentence. But...
Yes, there is a BUT. I know the one thing we can all agree on is that a premium sheet allows for more impact when used for the right projects. It helps the printed piece to demand attention by creating that extra oomph.
(If you missed my
musings on the impact a premium sheet can make on your client’s design, take a moment to catch up by reading the blog post.)
But, oomph is not the only consideration when advising your client to choose a premium sheet.
The stress of handling a premium jobLook at your ink coverage and your finishing techniques. If you have a solid PMS background, a lesser sheet might give it that mottled look. Is that really what your client had in mind? If your client asks for specific finishing techniques, and believe me, they have a clear idea how the end result should look, make sure the paper you recommend can handle them—all of them.
In last week’s post, I featured a
certificate of the New York Rock Exchange that had to go through the press 11 times. Yes, 11 times. And this was only on the finishing side. A mere mortal paper would not have withstood this challenge. Only a premium paper could.
“If a client expects perfection in a printed piece—like a Trump property marketing piece—then it makes sense to recommend a premium sheet,” Emily chimed in with one of my LinkedIn groups. The Donald would not be pleased with a lesser quality.
Managing expectationsAnd this is the key point when selecting paper: Clients are naturally disappointed when the result they get is different from what they expected.
Your clients might not be paper savvy, with less and less paper education available to them, so it is up to you to guide them. If you want to have loyal, repeat clients, show them you care about their projects.
“Abject financial times have forced us to do our jobs smarter (or loose them),” says Art Webb, account executive at Panoramic Press. “Many savvy marketers understand that they must partner with equally savvy manufacturers to execute on promises they’ve made to their clients.”
Savvy yes, but not selling out.
And in the case of a trust-building, attention-getting, brand-critical piece, why take away your client’s possibility of success to save pennies on the paper side?
Show them you have their best interest at heartThe key is:
- knowing when a cheaper sheet will do and when it has to be top of the line;
- to match the paper to the project and the desired outcome;
- to choose the paper that can produce the results you promised and ultimately keep your clients happy. Premium happy.
