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4.5 million tons. That eye-brow raising astronomical figure is the weight in tons of office paper that Americans throw out each year. That is enough paper to erect The Great Wall of America as a 12-foot-high wall of paper from Los angeles to New York. In addition to the amount of wasted product itself, keep in mind the incredibly resource-intensive process that is required to produce a single sheet of paper.
The root of most of this paper trash can easily be traced back to strategic inefficiencies, poor planning, and grossly inaccurate marketing estimates that result in tons of waste.
Let's start printing strategically:
1. Better Alternatives to Reaching Your Audience
Okay, so you are an organization putting on an event targeting college kids. Instead of printing out paper flyers that most kids would crumple up and shoot into a trash can, consider all of your alternative channels of distibution wisely. Where does your audience spend most of its time? How often does your audience really check their paper mail and/or respond to it? What networks do the members in your audience belong to? It is incredible the way the Internet facilitates word-of-mouth and spawns the developments of trends and movements--we're talking blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
E-mail marketing, when strategically deployed, can produce high ROIs, click-through rates, and trackable revenue increases. Especially with the majority of Americans spending 8-10 hrs a day on their computers and online, it is also a much more efficient and eco-friendly form of reaching your audience.
2. Choose Your Printer Wisely
The most business-forward, environmentally-conscious, and powerful change-agents in the printing industry have recognized the clear wastefulness of overprinting and have adjusted their business practices with this in mind. For instance, Green Printer, a company started by Brian Schindel and Alen Rokolj, has incorporated many more options for their customers that represent more efficient printing strategies. They don't simply take every job that a customer requests, in fact their business philosophy is described by Alen to be the following: "Printers need to be more to a client than just someone who puts ink on paper. Our clients often ask for advice and occasionally they want to know if they should print something or not. They want a way to economically deliver their message." And sometimes, the most economic way of delivering the message is NOT via print. Green Printer encourages people only to print on demand (when absolutely necessary), and when they do print, to utilize the array of eco-friendly options that are now available. All the papers that Green Printer use are treeless, contain recycled post-consumer waste (PCW), or are FSC or SFI certified. This eco-mentality extends into the process as well: waterless inks are used, products are gang printed to reduce off-cuts, and non-toxic finishes are offered. (http://www.greenprinteronline.com/).
Many printers now are offering options such as these. Doing some extra research and snooping around could save you money.
3. Get Your Numbers Right
People would be surprised (or may be in incredulous agreement) by how many decisions are made every day that utterly lack analytical backing. A decision to print 100,000 copies of a flyer could be based strictly on a rough estimate. Anyone who has seen flyers fluttering down urban sidewalks or received the direct mail pieces sandwiched between their bills has witnessed a hefty marketing spend by some company that over-estimated the amount of printed marketing materials they would need. Who doesn't feel sick at the sight of boxes of unread and undistributed marketing materials? Such a waste of resources, time, and money could be avoided through more research and better planning.
It's obvious that printing can add up in dollars and environmental impact. For companies that consider direct mail or postering as an integral component of their marketing strategy, critical analysis and evaluation of how to improve that strategy could significantly increase profitability, impove efficacy, and reduce their eco-footprint.
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