The Elephant in the Room...The EHG Space
Printers keep stressing about "new markets" and "becoming solution providers" and keep missing the elephant in the room – the amount of money that is floating around education, health and government looking for a place to land. Maybe the real new market problem for printers comes from the fact that they have the wrong customers.
Advertising to sell stuff was great for the last 40 years. But that was then, this is now. If there are new better, faster and cheaper ways to sell stuff, then maybe it's time to get whatever is left on the table and move on to greener pastures. Businesses that sell goods and/or services succeed best when they focus on their ‘Most Valued Customer.’ Organizations in the EHG - Education, Health and Government - space have to serve everyone. They can't afford the luxury of ‘Most Valued Customers.’ They are required by law and mission to only have ‘Equal Value Customers.’ When communicating with a market of ‘Equal Value Customers,’ print is not a "nice to have," it is a "must have."
Print works best in combination with the rest of whatever else is present in a real-world communication ecology. Digital print is able to integrate with that ecology in new and previously impossible ways. Being a solution provider that has the expertise to get the write marks on the right paper and then in the right place in a space where print is a "must have" makes a lot of sense. One would have to wonder what new opportunities might emerge if printers focus on solving their own problems as citizens, living in local communities with real challenges in making public education, community health and responsive government a practical reality.
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