How Google Diminished the Profits of the Print Industry

Is the death of print industry near? What happened to printing service profits? One of the unintended consequences of the growth of the internet in the past two decades has been its onslaught on the printing industry. More readers and consumers of print now prefer their content to be rendered by various online channels. This is a trend that has seen many content providers embrace the internet enthusiastically.

While this is true, printing still plays an important role in the dissemination of the information. A significant part of the population still prefers the printed materials. In the United States for example, the readers have been quite conservative, particularly in the magazine sector. An estimated 88% still prefer their magazines to be delivered in print form as opposed to online. This means that due to consumer inertia, printing is expected to continue playing a very significant place in the market.

One of the biggest media for the onslaught on the print industry has been the rise of the smartphone. Which in conjunction with Google, is really spelling a death knell to the global print industry. Today when consumers are in need of some kind of information, they will simply use their smartphones and Google the information. One factor driving the quick adoption of the online forms of the digital content rendering is the fact that with the improvement in the digital technologies. Since the quality of the digital print has increased considerably its giving users a richer experience in the online portals.

The Allure of Online Content

There are many reasons why Google and online content is supplementing print. At the dawn of the internet, you still had to go offline in order to access  quality content from the gurus who published in media. So if you were looking for greater credibility, you had to log off the net and look for some credible offline sources. But that too has changed in the recent years. Today you can find some of the most authoritative and knowledgeable voices in the cyberspace.

The other issue has to do with the relevance. You could have the best search engines such as Google in the past but still fail to get the best quality content. But with qualitative and regular updates over the recent past, Google has improved the quality and relevance of the content. Due to these updates better content appears at the top of the search engines. It means if you are looking for some quality information, you don’t have to log off anymore. Instead, you can easily find it at the top of the search engine results pages or SERPs by simply entering the relevant keywords related to the content.

Remote Distribution

One of the winning edges of the web over the printing industry is the ease of remote distribution of data anywhere. The internet, with the help of the search engines like Google, makes it possible for users to access or distribute a large amount of information across millions of computers. Many of the leading content producers such as Style.com, Fortune, Forbes, Vice and many others are now offering their premium content via their online portals although some of these still maintain printed publications.

The Dual Approach of the Publishing Companies

To cater to the changing times, publishing companies have adopted a dual approach to content dissemination. Many of these will first publish the content online before printing it for distribution to its subscriber-base that might prefer the printing option. With the online options presented by ecommerce, these businesses are also able to lower the costs of publishing while tapping into new revenue streams. But the printing industry is not dying without a fight. In fact, it is reinventing itself in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century. This has particularly been made possible with the rapid growth of digital printing techniques.

Digital Printing Services

Digital printing is the printing industry’s answer to the onslaught of the internet. It allows images, PDF documents and other files to be sent to the printer directly without the need of a printing plate. In the modern world where users deploy a multiplicity of devices, digital printing techniques make it very easy to print from your computer, smartphone devices.

The digital printing services come with several advantages such as the accuracy of printing, high speed of printing, cost effectiveness and very quick response times. With these techniques, it is possible for you to create very short runs in the shortest time possible.

How to Survive the Google Onslaught on Printing Services

Marketing using print services is not dead yet. There are various innovations that you can incorporate in the printing services to ensure you stay ahead of the curve. This is possible even as more consumers turn to the internet for marketing using print services. These include the following:

Incorporate printing on demand: One of the best ways to stay relevant in the industry is by incorporating on-demand services for the trade. The best way to be effective is by having short runs of top quality on demand work. This is very possible with the digital printing technologies. This is particularly important where the printed material needs to be updated on a regular basis as it allows buyers to update print material regularly.

Value added print products: This is another effective way that print servers can stay relevant and survive the Google onslaught. These can be applied in the images. In the future, magazines will get a lot more functional as they incorporate more innovations of the digital printing technologies.

More interactive printing: A good way to keep ahead is by making the print more interactive and integrating certain aspects of the digital media in the print. This is already happening at so many levels. It is available in the form of personalized URLs which are proving incredibly popular with many print buyers.