With the addition of white toner to its OKI-based transfer printing system, TheMagicTouch is able to create personalised messages on a huge variety of objects, quickly and cost effectively, as visitors to some recent industry events have discovered.
There was a pleasant surprise for delegates attending the Smart Directions Conference in May 2015. Digital Printer publisher Whitmar Publications had worked with TheMagicTouch to produce high quality personalised notebooks, with the delegate’s name picked out in white on a dark, polyurethane (PU) front cover, with the logos of the 12 Smart Directions partners printed in colour on the reverse. Visitors to a Heidelberg open day this summer were also wowed by a version of the notebooks.
The technology used to create the notebooks uses a unique print process that can also be used to personalise in full colour diaries, binders, menus, POS boards and many other similar products. TheMagicTouch managing director Jim Nicol observed: ‘Printing notebooks and diaries is nothing new, but personalised in full colour, with a minimum order of one, taking less than a minute? The cost of personalisation is less than 50p. You could use a UV printer but that’s expensive and slow. At exhibitions we take designs off of someone’s USB stick and within two to three minutes they have got a little something with their logo, name and website on it.’
The process is quick and simple using TheMagicTouch CPM transfer paper. The paper is printed using the TMT/OKI 711WT printer with its unique ‘White Toner’. This enables almost any colour or surface to be decorated with full colour registration using a traditional flat-bed heat press. The CPM transfer paper is available in A4 and A4XL and is also suitable for imaging onto ceramics, metal, leather and even wood. The transfer process is quick, clean and easy. The total area required for the printer and the heat press is less than two square metres, and the combination can be added to a printing company’s offering for just £3000 (£2000 for the printer, £1000 for the heat press).
Mr Nicol describes the personalised notebooks as ‘a nice ice-breaker’, and the same could be said for any number of items that can be personalised in this way to help a print firm keep itself at the front and centre of its customers’ minds.
‘Our technology is a piece of ammunition, and notebooks are just one of 100 things that people can do with this process. Many companies don’t have sales people now, so how do they think they are going to create new business and get better, closer relationships with customers? You hear stories about people investing £200,000 here and there on equipment, and there’s my little £2000 piece of ammunition alongside a good marketing person or someone that’s just good on the phone.’
There is a great opportunity for those in the B2B promotions market to target with ‘one off’ samples for prospective clients’ evaluation, offering a massive marketing advantage and thus making it considerably easier to target potential users as opposed to fishing with emails. Personalisation with names, logos, website and product images on a sample make it considerably easier to get someone’s attention.
As much as putting ideas into customers’ heads, it is also a nice casual, cost-effective way of keeping in touch with customers, said Mr Nicol, sending them something like a personalised notebook and then ringing them up to see what they think about it. It is a no-brainer for printers to use in-house to enhance their client relationships, he said.
‘As an opportunity, it’s a must,’ he went on. ‘Why not get someone good on the phone to call and say: “We sent that book to you, did you get it? There’s no artwork cost or set up. The minimum order is one and the first one is free. By the way, we have noticed that you have not placed an order recently, is there any reason? Do you need anything?”‘
Just phoning up cold does not work anymore, Mr Nicol stressed. ‘You’ve got to add some theatricals and fun these days. If they don’t buy anything, just say, no worries, we are here when you need us. At TheMagicTouch we want to act as a sales catalyst for people to hook into what’s happening in the real world. You have got to build relationships and get closer to your customer. You have got to know what your customers are doing so you can get the work. The print bit is the easy bit now.’
