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A funny thing happened within the printing industry sometime during the last 10 years: printers reinvented themselves. Primarily as a reaction to a very bad economy, “selling only print” was no longer a healthy business model.

I remember jumping on the Doubting Thomas bandwagon in 2009, thinking that the Marketing Services Provider makeovers were trendy, and certain to fade out in a year or two.

Why would customers choose to work with a print manufacturer who suddenly offers print and related marketing services? Wasn’t it a something of a silk-purse-sow’s-ear situation?

In the early stages of this transformation, which was very slow to catch on, I came across printing companies that were indeed purveyors of marketing services. They had added capabilities through growth or acquisition, which meant they could serve their market by planning campaigns, doing market research, providing multi-channel strategy and execution, as well as manufacturing and distributing printed materials. But most of the early MSPs were in-name-only. Anyone could (and many did) claim they’d been transformed from a printer to a firm that offered far more.

Things change, and that’s a fact. In the past three years, I’ve witnessed the incredible growth of printers as MSPs firsthand. There’s a Print Buyers International LinkedIn Group that I created and manage, and it stands out among the other print buyer groups on LinkedIn for this reason: only print customers can join. We voted early on to keep the group closed. Every year I poll members about this, and every year they vote to retain our exclusivity.

Here’s the thing: it gets harder and harder to know who’s a print customer and who’s a print provider. It’s all because of the MSP transformation. When I check out the URL of a person who’s asked to join our group, I more often than not get stumped. Either they clearly work for a company that purchases print materials (financial services, retail, pharmaceuticals, higher ed, nonprofit, entertainment, banking, and on and on), or they work for some amalgam of print + marketing + cross-media communications + web publishing + fulfillment.

Dutifully, I spend time on every such web site, trying to figure out if the person qualifies as a print customer or is, in reality, employed by a printer/MSP. And don’t even get me started on print management firms. That’s a “whole ‘nother smoke.”

More and more, I am finding printing companies that have transformed into MSPs. I think it’s a wise decision for many reasons. I’ve watched the roles of print buyers morph year after year. They rarely spend 100% of their time dealing with print-related responsibilities anymore. They need service providers who can deliver more value. If printers/MSPs can meet these needs, that’s excellent.

Last summer, along with industry consultant John Zarwan, I surveyed over 300 print buyers. One question we asked is quite relevant to this post: Do you prefer “printers who just print” or “printers as MSPs”? Only 13% of our respondents indicated that they want their printers to “just print.” The others look for printers offering more services, including new print concepts, mailing, fulfillment, personalization and web-to-print.

In a terrific piece on WhatTheyThink recently, Dr. Joe Webb shared very interesting data and insights about MSPs vs. “non-MSP” printers, especially concerning their 2013 success rates. Please read this article. Dr. Webb notes that MSPs showed greater growth over non-MSPs last year, although not by a landslide.

In my mind, the most interesting statement in his article was this:

“…About 60% of commercial printers claim to be MSPs. Many of the “pretender” MSPs have either gone out of business or have mended their ways.”

He goes on to note some key traits of successful MSPs, including their having an “ad agency mindset,” and that they are heavy into digital printing.

How long before that number reaches 75%, 90% and eventually 100% of all printers? Isn’t this inevitable – and the logical business transformation for printers?

Sometimes I slip. I refer to MSPs as Marketing Solutions Providers. To me, that’s where their value is, in providing solutions of many kinds to customers – what to produce; how to shape marketing or product-rollout campaigns; how to distribute materials; when, why and how to integrate web-based segments with print; and how to track a campaign’s effectiveness. These are solutions to common marketing problems. Modern printers that I know are tackling these problems every day.

I’d love your thoughts on this.

(c) 2014 Margie Dana