Hi, there.  This is Frank Romano for WhatTheyThink.com.

Well Margie Dana who runs the Print Buyer International Organization takes little surveys in all of her e-mail tips that she sends out.  And I got a collection of some of them and I thought you'd be interested in some of the results.

The most interesting thing is that very few print buyers actually have the title Print Buyer.  It was less than five percent who had Print Buyer in their title.  One-third of them were in marketing or marcom and one-third were in purchasing.  So trying to find a print buyer by their title is going to get a lot harder I think.

Again, the questions are somewhat random so I didn't put them in any order.

How will your print related job responsibilities change?  And 34 percent say they will increase.  In fact, increase was the majority of all of it because some say definitely increase, probably increase, et cetera.  So, increase was the keyword there.

We don't need to know about how they use paper; although, we might get to that later on.

How many bids for print jobs do you normally seek?  Thirty-six percent said three to five, 44 percent said up to three.  One answer was just one from my preferred vendor, 12 percent.

Does your firm use Twitter?  And 27 percent of the cases the person that responded who's doing print buying in the organization, is involved in Tweeting from their firm.  I don't know why the print buyer would do Tweeting, but hey, that's the way life is.

What is your age group?  It's against the law to ask that question, by the way, in many surveys but in any case we have some answers here.  In their 30's, 14 percent.  In their 40's, 38 percent.  In their 50's, 31 percent.  In their 60's, almost nine percent.

Experience base is there, but you can see that 40 and under are about 50 percent.

In 2010, will your firm’s budget be -- or will it increase: 8.3 percent.  Decrease, 50 percent.  In 2010, will your firms printing budget do what?  It will decrease.  Fifty percent say that it will.  Thirty-three percent say that it will remain the same.

Do you buy any print related product outside of the country?  27.8 percent say yes they do.  Seventy-two percent say no they don't.

Is your compensation dependent on how much you reduce your firm's print spending?  Eleven percent say yes.  Wow.

Do you conduct annual printer vendor reviews?  Thirty-seven percent say they do.

Are you confident in your ability to pick apart printers estimates and invoices?  Ninety-four percent say absolutely.

Does a printer accompany you to internal meetings in your firm?  Sometimes: 44 percent.  Never: 52 percent.

How important is it to work with a woman or minority owned provider?  It's not mandatory, but we seek these firms out: 42 percent.  It's not something we think about: 57 percent.

Do you work with print brokers or print distributors?  No: 66.7 percent.  Occasionally: 33 percent.

Are you involved in purchasing and/or recommending media other than print?  Yes: 66.7 percent, buy something other than print as well as print.

Do you purchase your own paper?  Some of it: 33 percent.  No, my printers purchase the paper: 58 percent.  Well, we know that.

Does your company have regulations about accepting gifts from vendors?  Yes: 75 percent.

Are you planning on doing any variable data printing projects?  Yes: 14 percent.  No: 43 percent.  That's interesting.  But here's the one that's most telling.  I don't know what you mean: 28 percent.  We're not doing a very good job telling people about variable data printing.

Has your firm's print production staff been reduced this year?  Yes: 36.8 percent.

How often should perspective printers contact you?  Quarterly: 41.7 percent.  Little note: if I say I am not interested, I prefer they not call me back: 29.2 percent.  A no, is a no.

How important are your CSR's in dealing with printers?  Very important: 47 percent.

Due to the economy, are you looking further afield for printers in order to save money?  Yes: 23 percent.  No: 41 percent.

In these tough times, are you more likely to cut printing projects or reduce quality on existing ones?  We're cutting projects to reduce costs: 30 percent.  A little of both: 50 percent.

Do you accept soft proofs?  Yes, but it depends on the job and the printer: 69.6 percent.

Do you prefer working with printers who are ISO Certified?  You ready for this one?  Yes: 4.2 percent.  I'm impressed, but it's not a deal-breaker: 58.3 percent.  It doesn't matter to us: 33.3 percent.  Best one.  I don't know what ISO means: 4.2 percent.  They probably don't know what VDP means either.

Of all the printing you purchase for your firm, how much of it is digital printing?  More than 50 percent: 23 percent.  That's good.  That's interesting.  About 50 percent: 11.8 percent.  So significant amount of digital printing is being purchased.  Again, short runs now because of the fact that long runs are not something they can afford.

Does your corporate title have the word print and/or production in it?  Yes, it has both: 29 percent.  Yes, it has one of those words: 41.9 percent.  No, neither: 19.4 percent.

How much of your time is spent on print-related responsibilities?  Twenty-five to 50 percent: 14 percent say so.  Fifty to 75 percent: 42 percent.  And 100 percent or close to it: 33 percent.

Would you follow your favorite print rep to a new firm?  Sixty-three percent said yes.  Wow.  That says something.

Do you value client testimonials?  I take them with a grain of salt: 52 percent.

This is another one on experience and I think we had one before on that.  This is the most interesting.  Do you find yourself having to defend print as a marketing medium to your boss, colleagues, and/or customers?  Yes, a lot lately: 33.3 percent.  Once in awhile: 33.3 percent.  No: 33.3 percent.  Whew.

How much of your organizations promotional budget is earmarked for print?  Seventy-five percent of their budget is earmarked for print.  That's 20 percent saying yes and 50 percent say it's about half.

Are you confident you know that you're aware of all the products and services your print vendors offer?  Absolutely: 33 percent.  I think I am: 11 percent.  Probably not, come to think of it: 22 percent.

Does your company buy some of its printing from e-commerce printing sites like Mimeo.com?  Yes: 32 percent.  We're finding a lot of corporations have branded sites.  They go to Mimeo and they actually put their name on it in some way.  So for utility products of certain kinds, like envelopes and stationary and things like that, it's all bought online rather then through either the implant print shop or through outside vendors.

Is your company laying off production and creative staff members?  Yes, there have already been lay-offs: 35 percent.  We're expecting lay-offs in the first quarter: 15 percent.

All right.  I know I threw a lot of numbers at you, and I should have had charts and graphs but nah.  I'm going to write all this stuff up and do it as one of the Friday articles.  So within the next few weeks, you'll see the documentation and all the numbers there and you can review it that way.  And there were other questions as well but I just didn't think we'd have time to do them all.

So hopefully you found it interesting on the trends with print buyers and I think Margie Dana for sharing that information with me.  Take care everybody.

Next time...

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