CHESTNUT HILL, MA and CHARLOTTETOWN, PEI Canada - June 24, 2013 – The role of print in the marketing mix is changing. This coincides with a diffusion of responsibility for marketing and marketing decisions. As a result, print buying is changing. While many organizations still have “print buyers” whose primary—if not only—responsibility is purchasing print, increasingly it is not their primary function. In addition, print is purchased by other corporate professionals, such as marketers, for whom print is a small part of a larger project. How print is bought is also shifting. Print buyers are purchasing more print online, through internal corporate portals as well as directly with print providers.

What is it that these new print buyers want? Are they, in fact, interested in value-added services? And if so, which? What percentage of their time is spent on print-related activity?  What other responsibilities do they typically have? How has their corporate print budget changed in the past three years – and what will happen to it during the next three?
 
Margie Dana, founder of Print Buyers International who recently launched her new business at Margiedana.com, and John Zarwan of J Zarwan Partners propose to answer these and other questions through a quantitative survey of print buyers in the U.S. as well as Canada. The collected responses will be aggregated and studied in order to build a Profile of the New Print Buyer.
 
This is the second survey conducted by Margie Dana recently. Last December, she did a quantitative survey of print buyers to reveal Key Trends & Sourcing Practices. This new survey goes deeper, polling buyers about their industries, where they source print, their salary ranges, and if other units in their organizations also buy print, among other questions.
 
“I’ve seen more changes in print buying during the past three years than in my entire 25-year career,” noted Dana, “and this study will help inform both printers and print buyers. It’s incredibly difficult to get this kind of key data about print buyers. The buyers who already know about this new study are especially interested in discovering career trends we’ll identify.”
 
This survey is open to professionals who source commercial printing for their employers, including print buyers, production managers, graphic designers and print brokers. Print service providers are not eligible to participate.
 
Those who do qualify for this research project are invited to contact either Margie Dana ([email protected]) or John Zarwan ( http://www.johnzarwan.com/contact.htm) for a link to the survey. Participants are eligible to win a $75 Amazon gift card or a copy of the just-released Enfocus Connect YOU software, a $99 value.