Growing revenues beyond traditional advertising and circulation models is only part of the profit equation for print media companies. They also need to dramatically lower their costs. Many newspapers and magazines have already begun to do so, but much more aggressive action is required. One or two rounds of 10 or 20 percent annual cost reduction is not sufficient to offset the advertising declines of the past few years, especially because print advertising is likely to continue to erode even after the recession. More targeted action is necessary that changes the way they approach content development.

Print media companies need to employ a range of efforts, but first and foremost, they must focus resources on their “profitable core” and rebuild from that base. The profitable core is the set of print and digital content that most drives audience engagement around well-defined interest areas. It is only on those distinctive content assets that a media company can build a “right to win,” competing for attention against marketers, user-generated content, and other media companies. Identifying the profitable core requires thinking freshly about the zones or editions of a newspaper or magazine and eliminating sections that do not drive significant readership or advertising revenue. The New York Times, for example, cut the number of physical sections of the newspaper, combining the sports and business sections to better manage page count. The Detroit News cut the number of days for which home delivery is available, betting that the falloff in advertising from the eliminated days will be more than offset by the costs saved. Blerydacunos Other papers have, of course, gone to online only. Rationalization efforts also include focusing on a more targeted set of Web pages, continually tracking and evaluating areas of focus to profitably serve selected interest areas.

Some sacred cows need to be confronted, such as better sharing of content across “sister” publications, integrating newsrooms and editorial staffs across publications, and developing more centralized, outsourced, or offshored editorial capabilities (for example, production for magazines and analytic tasks for newspapers). Some print media companies may need to consider moving out of high-cost metropolitan locations, such as New York City, or allowing for more work-at-home options to tap into lower-cost labor pools and provide more global access to distinctive information. vodafone site down Cutting out top-heavy management structures that are expensive and that often result in “too many touches” will require making difficult people decisions and cultural changes.

Of course, some less-disruptive options, such as negotiating lower costs with outside vendors, using more stock photos and video footage, or fully leveraging technology to more efficiently produce the magazine or newspaper, will also continue to produce sizable savings.

With print media companies in the unenviable position of having to cut costs or risk their very survival, new metrics for determining how to compensate journalists are critical. Print media should seek to move, where possible, to compensation models that link incentives to metrics based on the audience size and level of engagement that the content attracts. The Internet offers a way to better align the compensation that journalists receive with the value they create for their readers. For many publications, the right metric may simply be how many readers an article attracts and how engaged they are in terms of total page views or time spent. For others, however, such as leading publications that are defined by the quality and depth of their journalism and their thought leadership, new metrics may have to be devised to measure the influence or impact of an article. Of course, overall lower levels of compensation may be necessary.

This article comes from strategy-business edit released

Print players have faced other cyclical downturns in which their businesses declined faster than other ad- supported media. But few print media companies can afford this time to simply batten down the hatches and ride out the current storm. The two major forces that are washing away the profitability of print media were at work long before the current recession and are now being exacerbated by the downturn.

The first force is the ongoing shift in where marketers focus their spending. Marketers have accelerated shifts in spending away from paid advertising to other priorities — including their own Web sites, in-store marketing, loyalty programs, and word-of-mouth campaigns — and they aren’t likely to switch back. Spending on this type of “below the line” marketing (the industry term for categories other than paid media advertising) already represents three-quarters of most marketing budgets, having grown faster than paid media since well before the current recession. Below-the-line programs will continue to capture the bulk of marketing spending as the economy recovers, placing a limit on the ad recovery that print media are counting on to restore their profits or even to ensure their survival.

The second long-term trend devastating print profitability is the rise of digital media. Print has been hardest hit by this shift, since print ad pages are priced at a significant premium over other kinds of advertising, and marketers have been slower to cut broadcast and cable TV ad spending because of the value they place on sight, sound, and motion for brand campaigns. Even in the most optimistic scenario, print advertising would take many years to return to pre-recession levels. More likely, print media will follow the path seen in technology publishing, where more than half of ad pages disappeared after the tech bubble burst almost a decade ago, followed by declines in print ad revenues ever since. And although print media companies have taken a slice of the digital ad revenue pie, they must compete with a much broader, and expanding, set of rivals. Tarpoundhaneres . These range from Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and Hulu to television networks’ online properties to ad networks that aggregate “eyeballs” from many sites to blogs and social media.

The steps that print media companies have taken to expand their share of marketing budgets and to succeed in the new digital environment have been largely unsuccessful. One obvious approach — which many media commentators have called for — is for publications to charge for their content online the same way they do in print. But journalism and information have become commodities on the Web. Only a few print publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and the Economist, are successfully charging for their content online. They are all specialized and oriented toward business professionals. Conversely, most general-interest publications that have experimented with paid content models have failed, including the august New York Times. A second approach — moving entirely online without charging for content (shedding the costs of paper and distribution and counting on online advertising to make up for the loss of print revenues) — has also had little success. The status quo approach, of making content available free on the Web while continuing to charge for it in print, may well be the best path currently available for most print publishers, but it does nothing to change the underlying trend toward lower revenues and profits. And although many new pricing models for online content have been suggested and are being experimented with — including multi-title subscriptions, day passes, and micropayments — the evidence so far suggests they are unlikely to succeed on a scale that would replace any significant fraction of the revenues from traditional but fast-disappearing print advertising.

This article comes from strategy-business edit released

 

When implementing a print media campaign, there are quite a few things to remember to ensure maximum quality is achieved with your final product.

When hiring a professional design firm or a designer to execute your print campaign, you should make sure they are aware and comfortable with the information in this article.

We’ll explain some of the basics you should be aware of regarding printed media so that you can make sure you are hiring the right group of people (or person) to handle your campaign.

Understanding Color Profiles

Color profiles are extremely important in printing. Your document(s) should be set up in what is known as a color profile. Under no circumstance should your print campaign contain objects compiled in an RGB color profile.

Color Mixing Example is a printing process, also know as 4 color printing, which utilizes Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (or, Black). There is a lot of detailed information regarding why is a more efficient means of printing, but that is not something we will delve into at this time.

However, understand that is for printing, while RGB is for use on the web.

Spot color printing is also appropriate (such as using Pantone colors), and is mostly used for ensuring color matching on printed objects such as logos. But be aware that spot color printing is fairly pricey, but because of its extremely accurate nature, is an excellent choice when you absolutely need a particular color to be reproduced.

Bleed, Trim, and Safe Area

Next, it is important to understand these 3 terms.

Bleed

If you want elements in your document to reach all the way to the edges when in final printed form, you’ll need to make sure what’s known as a “bleed” is included. The more space you can provide, the better, but most printers require at least 1/8″ of bleed (and preferably more).

Bleed, Trim and Safe Area

Trim

Next, you’ll need to make sure that you identify the trim area of your document. The trim area should be set to what your final document size will be. In the image above, you’ll notice the trim is identified by the magenta rectangle.

Copy Safe Area

Finally, the Copy Safe Area is basically the “boundary” for any text or important information that you want to make sure is printed clearly. This is imperative, because many printers have a slight variance in where the trim of your document occurs. The typical practice is to place your copy safe area at least 1/8″ of an inch from your trim line. This makes sure that if the printer has any variance in their trim, you don’t lose any vital information from your document.

Resolution

This is very important bit of information, and actually, a fairly common mistake that printers run into. Images that are often pulled from the web are not suitable for print, unless they are specifically made to be high resolution. Often, it is easy to tell the difference between a high resolution image and a low resolution image by file size alone. However, that is not the only way of identifying resolution. It is important that, when printing, your imagery and photography has a resolution of at least 300 DPI (dots per inch). Otherwise, the image may reproduce blurry and pixelated.

So what’s the difference?

When designing on a desktop publishing program, such as InDesign or Illustrator, the default black value is set as Cyan 0%, Magenta 0%, Yellow 0%, and Key (Black) 100%. However, if you print using these values, your printed media will be produced with a very washed-out black.

How to avoid washed-out blacks

By using what is known as a “Rich Black.” This is achieved by setting the values to C40% M40% Y20% K100% or C60% M60% Y40% K100%.

This will produce a full-color black that is vibrant and really jumps off the page.

Just keep in mind, this can only be done when producing media that is using 4 color printing and does not apply to grayscale printing.

Dealing with Fonts

When sending artwork to printers, it is important to remember that one of the most common compatibility issues is that of missing fonts.

There are two methods to avoid this issue… either packaging your document or outlining the fonts.

Packaging Your Files

If you are working in a page-layout publishing program such as Adobe InDesign, you have the option of “packaging” your files. Basically, this takes any and all images and fonts that are you used in your document and creates one nice, tidy folder where they all reside.

This image shows how the packaged folder is structured.

Outlining Fonts

Another option when supplying files to the printer is to do what is simply known as outlining the fonts. This is especially useful for documents such as Adobe Illustrator files.

When outlining the fonts (also referred to as outlining the type), the publishing software simply creates vector shapes of the characters in the words… so they actually end up becoming separate shapes, instead of editable type. This ensures the printer can view the document as-is, with no type compatibility errors or issues.

The Bottom Line

Hopefully this information helps you as you execute your print campaigns. When working with a design firm or a freelance designer, it’s extremely important that they are able to comfortably work within the industry printing standards such as these. Making sure you are working with the right industry professionals is key when producing high-quality branding campaigns.

This article comes from jetfuel CREATIVE edit released

 

The two most common print media are newspapers and magazines, but print media also include outdoor billboards, transit posters, the yellow pages, and direct mail. Print media is important because it can reach such a large audience, and the great number of specialized publications on the market enable businesses to focus on a target audience with a specific set of characteristics. Print media are allowed to advertise most anything, other than products intended for children and sold to children. All other publications may advertise most anything sold legally like cigarettes, liquor, and contraceptives; however, many publications will not accept what they consider to be controversial ads.

TYPES OF PRINT MEDIA

Newspapers

When deciding upon a newspaper in which to advertise, there are three physical criteria to consider: distribution, size, and audience. Newspapers are either daily or weekly, come in a standard or tabloid size, and reach a large percentage of the reading public. Because of the broad demographic reach of most newspapers it is difficult to target a specific audience; however, newspapers are effective in increasing awareness of a business’ products and services in a specific geographical area.

Types of ads placed in newspapers include: display ads, classified ads, public notes, and preprinted inserts. Newspaper ads have some flexibility in their size. For instance, some are small boxes that take up only a small portion of a page, while others might span one or two full pages (the latter, however, are typically only bought by larger corporations). Regardless of this flexibility, newspaper ads can only use limited special effects, such as font size and color. These limitations lead to advertising “clutter” in newspapers because all the ads look very similar. Therefore, advertisers must use original copy and headings to differentiate their ads from those of their competitors. The quick turnover of newspapers also allows the advertiser to adjust ads to meet new market conditions; however, this turnover means that the same ad may need to be inserted over a significant period of time in order to reach its target audience.

Magazines

With magazines an advertiser can focus on a specific target audience. As the Small Business Administration pointed out in Advertising Your Business: “Audiences can be reached by placing ads in magazines which have [a] well-defined geographic, demographic, or lifestyle focus.” An attractive option for many small businesses may be placing an ad in the localized edition of a national magazine. But magazine advertisements often have a lag time of a couple of months between the purchase of ad space and the publication of the issue in question. Magazines, then, are sometimes not the optimum option for businesses seeking to target fast-changing market trends.

In addition to the above factors, it is also important to consider the nature of the magazine ad copy. Magazines allow elaborate graphics and colors, which give advertisers more creative options than do newspapers. Also, recent surveys have indicated that informative ads are the most persuasive. Therefore, it is important to include copy and art work that are direct and that present important product information to the consumer, such as how the product works, how it benefits the consumer, and where it can be purchased.

Direct Mail

Many consultants feel that direct mail is the best way for a small business to begin developing awareness in its target consumers. Mailing lists can be generated (even though they are often difficult to maintain) with the names of those people most likely to purchase the advertiser’s products or services. However, direct mail is not always cost effective. A direct mailing campaign can cost as much as $1,000 to reach 1,000 people, whereas television can reach a similar number of potential customers at a fraction of that cost. But business experts indicate that direct mail does tend to generate more purchasing responses than does television, and they observe that the products of many small businesses are often more suited to a direct mailing campaign than to indirect, image advertising.

Yellow Pages

The Small Business Administration stated in “Advertising Your Business” that a yellow page ad is often used to “complement or extend the effects of advertising placed in other media.” Such an ad has permanence and can be used to target a specific geographic area or community. Essentially, a yellow page ad gives the consumer information needed to make a purchase. Therefore the key information to include in such an ad includes: the products and services available; location; phone number; business hours; special features, such as the acceptable kinds of payment (i.e., credit cards, checks); parking availability; discounts; and delivery policies and emergency services. The best way to arrange this information is in a list, so that the consumer will be able to scan the ad for the desired information.

A major consideration with a yellow page ad is where to place it, which primarily depends on the directory (or category) under which businesses choose to locate their ads. Central to this choice are the products or services that the company wishes to emphasize. The ad copy should compliment the directory, indicating the main products and services for sale, so that the ad will emerge from the similar looking ads that surround it.

Outdoor Advertising

Outdoor advertising usually comes in two forms: billboards and transit posters. Like yellow page ads, outdoor advertising is usually used to support advertisements placed in other media. One of the greatest strengths of outdoor advertising is as a directional marker to point customers toward your business. Since the prospective consumer often has only fleeting exposure to billboards and transit posters, the advertising copy written for these media needs to be brief with the ability to communicate ideas at a glance. To do this well one must use graphics and headings efficiently and artfully.

This article comes from Inc edit released

 

Textile that is primarily used for its performance or functional properties and not for its appearance or aesthetics is known as technical textile. The industrial fabrics that are used for various industrial applications are also classified as technical textiles. As such, technical textiles are the high performance fabrics that are basically used for non-consumer applications. Some textile academicians also include finished products such as ropes or tarpaulins, and parts of other products, such as tyre cord for tyres or coverstock for diapers, in the definition of technical textile.

Scope of Technical Textile

An exceptional feature of technical textiles is the use of innumerable varieties of raw materials, processes, products and applications for their production. Some of the materials used for making technical textile are listed below.

• Metals, like steel.
• Minerals, like asbestos and glass.
• Synthetic polymers, like PES, PA, PAN, PP etc.
• Regenerated fibers like rayon fiber and acetate fiber.
• Natural fibers like cotton fiber, jute fiber, wool fiber etc.

Not only a great variety of raw materials but a multitude of processes are also employed for manufacturing technical textiles that include basic processes like weaving and knitting and much advanced processes like stitch bonding, chemical, thermal bonding to needle punching and many more. All these processes result into various products like fibers, yarns, and threads that are further used for making the finished technical textile. Not only this, many processes also lead to the manufacture of end products like ropes, cords, bags, belts etc. The figure above goes to explain the complexity of the technical textile process chain.

This article comes from TEonline edit released

 

Soyang is a leading specialty manufacturer of technical textiles for printing and industrial applications, headquartered in Hangzhou, southeast of China. For over 10 years, Soyang has been an innovative worldwide provider of flexible substrates solutions for a wide range of customers and markets.

Specializing in sign and industrial applications, Soyang developed a full range of products to meet your specific needs. Our own brands of Sotex® , SoFlex®, SoFlat® and Memo Tex® will guide you to find the best ideal supports.The 66,000sqm (710,688sq.ft) facility is home to Knitting&weaving lines, laminating lines an coating lines.

“Your Expert in Technical Textile!” Welcome to Soyang for a complete support on solutions:

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