If all packaging was printed digitally, it would reduce package waste by 26% and save 50+ million tons from landfills.

Digital printing reduces environmental impact – print what you need, where and when you need it.

REDUCE UNNECESSARY PRINTING: digital gives you the freedom to print smaller amounts for market tests, versions on-demand and customization.

RESOURCE EFFICIENCY: with digital printing, you do not require plates and cylinders. The pre-press process is significantly shortened, and you also need to maintain lower levels of inventory and less paper used due to almost no makeready.

REDUCE TRANSPORTATION COSTS: by printing shorter runs locally, as opposed to printing on the East or West coast, and then shipping to Kansas City, you reduce your carbon footprint and non-renewable energy consumption caused by shipping.

AFFORDABILITY: A growing number of price-conscious businesses are giving digital printing a try because the cost per unit is significantly less than the cost of using offset printing for low and mid-volume orders. Money is saved on the front end because of reduced setup costs and tooling (print plates and dies). Additionally, there are no order minimums, allowing you to only pay for the printing that you need – even if your needs are modest. Companies also enjoy a healthier cash flow because the printing process is faster, and products can ship more quickly – thereby improving stream of revenue.

A prospect’s first impression of your brand is heavily influenced by the packaging you choose. Digitally printed packaging offers a host of benefits, including impressive accuracy, flexibility, and speed to market.

To learn more about digital printing options, please give us a call.

Brand protection is one of top three concerns for brand owners, when considering their package printing. With HP Indigo Invisible Electrlnks, we can print your labels with digitally invisible features to protect your product from counterfeiting.

Inks only visible under common UV light, without a need for a specialized reader is now possible for covert brand protection features.

Case Study: Alpha Neon

Alpha Neon, a food supplement manufacturer, experienced a 40% drop in sales over a three-month period, due to an influx of imitations of their products. Alpha therefore wanted to introduce a new look, with a label that would be impossible to copy and would incorporate security features.

Their solution was that each label, printed on a 6800 HP Indigo Digital Press using the HP SmartStream Designer, contains a unique code that enables consumers to authenticate the product via e-mail or SMS. (And we recently acquired this amazing label and packing solution at MEDiAHEAD!)

In addition, Invisible Blue ElectroInk was used on the logo and on the word ‘Darkside’. The sellers receive UV lights to shine on the products to allow them to immediately recognize the authentic ones.

For the relaunch – UV strips were also applied to the shelves in stores. And as an added security measure, digital varnish was applied to the label, which created a tactile finish that is difficult to replicate.

Alpha Neon was thrilled with the labels and saw an increase in sales almost immediately after launching their product back into the market.

We can now offer a vast portfolio of unique and exclusive security solutions, due to the wide variety of inks, substrates and the power to give each product a unique ID!

To learn more about how this technology can help you with your next project, please give us a call!

Amy, Owner of Homestead Mamas Magazine

By Kat McDaniel, Principal at MEDiAHEAD

We are printing a new magazine for Homestead Mamas. They’re an inspiring and encouraging community of growers, hunters, foragers, and explorers.

I really enjoyed the story by Nina Mullins – The farmers Who Don’t Know Anything! “Right now, we are still in the ‘Can we make this all work?’ stage of the game. We have had many failures and losses, but also many sweet victories. This has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, not necessarily because caring for a tiny farm is difficult (it has its difficulties, though!), but because we are in a season of life where we are getting up early to do all the morning farm chores.

Then we take kids to their homeschool co-op and various activist afterwards, all while trying to work our jobs in between it all to put food on the table. We started all this craziness in our 40’s! And our poor kids… they were living the easy life of school, play and sleep. Then their parents decide to start a farm, and suddenly, they are helping feed chickens, they’re milking cows and mucking stalls.”

Homestead Mamas Recipes

There are wonderful recipes from Homestead Mamas – Wild Mushroom Risotta, Pizza Dough, Chevre and Chive Quiche and Saturday Morning Pancakes, my favorite.
View the Recipes

I welcome this magazine as a place for women all over the world, in every stage of motherhood, homesteading, or providing for their families to gather.

Follow them on Instagram – they have over 75M followers!

Never has trust between customers and brands been more critical. As e-commerce continues to grow, both for health and convenience, a gap is growing, too—between brands and their customers. Trust bridges the gap.

Here are five ways you can use your print and digital communications to increase the level of trust you have with your customers.

1. Be transparent.

Be honest about your intentions with the communication—don’t bait and switch. Buyers are smart. They know when you’re real with them.

2. Show you care.

The more you show that you can relate to your customers’ concerns, the more trust you gain. That’s why empathy has become such a massive trend in marketing. Look at the success of home meal kits. Yes, advertisers promote the great taste of their food, but they also focus on helping families reclaim time out of their over-scheduled days and use meal preparation as a way to spend quality time together.

3. Deliver on your promises.

Things like money-back guarantees, free trials, and “no questions asked” returns are one way to assure buyers that your promise matches what you deliver.

4. Emphasize reliability.

Promote the results of customer service surveys showing high satisfaction rates (for example, “95% of our customers would recommend us to a friend”). Include customer testimonials and even online reviews as part of your print and digital layouts. If other people had a good experience, this increases buyers’ confidence that they can trust you, too.

5. Segment based on values rather than demographics.

Buyers in the same demographic categories often have similar priorities and needs, but when your goal is building trust, marketing to a prospect’s values can be more effective. If you are selling children’s toys, for example, target your message based on the shared value set of being active, involved parents rather than simply being parents of school-age children.
Especially in times of uncertainty, use your communications to convey consistency, transparency, and empathy. It’s a different approach than the traditional direct sell, but it’s highly effective. Especially right now.

Source: Drawn from survey results of “Global Marketing Trends” (Deloitte, 2021)