If a new study commissioned by GAMIS (Graphic Arts Marketing Information Service) can be believed, some 29% of all printers expect to start using variable-data printing for both black-and-white and color applications within the next three years. The study indicates the market for variable data printing will swell to $6.28 billion by 2004, almost two-and-a-half times its current level. In addition, the survey notes, about half of the jobs being printed on digital presses today are new applications, rather than jobs migrating from offset presses.

I lack further details on the survey because GAMIS refuses to divulge additional nuggets of information. Still, this growth shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Almost any printer who has been paying attention is likely to admit variable data printing will grow over the next few years. That GAMIS considers the projected growth worthy of a press release highlights the point that the market for digital printing and its unique selling proposition--variable data--continues developing at glacial speeds.

There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is that print engine vendors have done little to grow a market for their products. Every year, vendors launch new sales training programs to help printers' sales forces "sell digital." This seems like a good plan, but has consistently failed to grow the market as fast as it must to encourage broad adoption. The required sell is too complex, works at too many levels, and is well outside the comfort zone of most print sales people. Expecting print sales people to do all the selling of a new printing technology is like sending missionaries into the jungle to convert the heathen: Some days you win; some days you get eaten. Yet when it really works, it seems more likely due to great sales people than the training. Unfortunately, this same "send out the missionaries" approach is likely to continue with variable data.

What the vendors have generally failed to do is make a concentrated, consistent effort to educate the "C-level" executives at their customers' customers about is this great thing called digital printing, the real business problems it solves, and what it can mean for their companies. Done in concert with existing print provider sales and marketing programs, awareness of the advantages of digital printing would almost certainly grow, along with click charges and print providers' bottom lines. And as demand grew, more boxes would ultimately be delivered.

To be fair, a number of print vendor marketing execs I know admit a broader approach is necessary, but have difficulty getting such outside-the-box initiatives funded. Revenue numbers (and stockholder expectations) after all, are driven off of sales, and that means moving boxes. An educational approach that builds broader demand is a slower sell, with less direct proof of success, even though the longer term payoff may be greater.

But in a time when most projections for capital equipment investments are as soft as Enron stock, it might be reasonable --maybe in just one or two test markets--to begin educating the "C-level" people who can understand the difference a digital printing solution--especially with variable data--can make.

Machines like the NexPress 2100 and the forthcoming Xerox iGen3 have the potential to change the way a lot of printing gets done. But they can only do that if there are enough of them out there, in the right places and running the right applications. Instead of directing from afar, vendors must become active participants in growing the market they have created and not solely relying on print sales guys to convert the masses. When they do that, we all win, and digital printing, variable data and all, will take its rightful place beside offset as another way to print.