Digital Printing Services

Today’s marketers need options. That’s why Qualprint offers both offset and digital printing services.. The choice of these two print technologies allows marketers to choose the option that best suits the needs of their job and budget.

Decades ago, offset printing was the only choice for anyone looking for a high-quality, color printed piece. But digital printing technology has made tremendous advances, making it the right choice for many situations. Still there are some important differences that usually make one a better choice than the other for any specific job. And our experts are ready to help our customers choose the best solution for their needs.

On this page we’ll cover digital printing – what it is, when to use it and our specific digital capabilities.

What is Digital Printing?

Before digital, most printing processes started by taking a design (whether copy or images or both), transferring it to something physical. You may recall old school typesetters handpicking individual letters and arranging them in a tray (“the galley”) before inking them up for print. Or, the much more modern plates used for offset printing that get inked, transfer the ink to rubber blankets and then to paper or whatever material is being printed.

With digital printing the physical materials (plates, trays of type, etc.) go away. So does the process of inking them up. Instead, a digital file like a PDF or some other desktop publishing file is sent directly to the printer. The printer then prints that file out on whatever substrate you’re using for your project – paper, photo paper, canvas, fabric, cardstock and more. As a simple example, think of the laser printers used in offices. But, of course, we’re talking about much more sophisticated and versatile digital technologies than laser printing.

Digital Printing vs. Offset Printing

As described above, digital printing differs from traditional, analog printing methods – such as offset printing – because digital printers don’t require printing plates. Instead of using plates to transfer an image, digital printing presses print the image directly onto the media substrate. Like most technologies, digital print technology is evolving and improving continuously. And we’re continually upgrading our digital capabilities to keep pace. Our current capabilities deliver digital print quality comparable to offset, while also offering a number of advantages. Here’s a description of the key capabilities that make digital such an important part of so many of today’s print marketing programs:

Cost-Effective Short Runs: Setting up a print run on offset presses takes time. Plates have to be made. The press needs to be inked up. So, it’s only cost effective when printing quantities of 500 or more. Digital, on the other hand, takes less set up, making it the perfect solution for smaller quantity runs.

Print On Demand (POD): Digital’s short run capabilities also make it perfect for marketing programs that require print on demand. This is where materials are made quickly in response to incoming orders – typically in short runs – eliminating the need to produce larger orders that may end up in the dumpster. It’s also an advantage for marketing programs that continually update their printed materials.

Personalization or Variable Data Printing: Digital printers with variable data printing capabilities can literally make every printed piece different, allowing customers to cost-effectively customize or personalize each individual print piece with different copy and images. Based on the data they have and their goals, marketers can use this capability in many ways. Here are a few examples of how we use it to help our customers:

• We can add recipient names and other details to each piece of a direct mailing
• We can segment your list into groups and then send each group different, group-specific messages. We do this, for instance, for a non-profit fundraising program, breaking recipients into corporate donors, small individual donors, non-donors and past donors who haven’t given recently and sending each group different versions of the same mail piece.
• We can put different response mechanisms on each printed piece – for instance unique QR codes – that allow you to link members of a group to a group-specific webpage – or to track which recipients respond to each piece – giving you information about each respondent as well as what messages work best

Combine all this with digital printing’s fast, short run capabilities and print on demand and you can see how digital printing can be a game changer for your marketing program. Particularly in today’s world where more customers expect brands to respond quickly and to show that they know them, dealing with them as individuals, not mass audiences. And, of course if you want to know more about how our digital printing platforms can help you print programs, you know what to do.