Choosing the Right Commercial Printing Method for Your Business

Choosing the right printing techniques can improve your ROI, increase your print materials’ impact, and elevate your brand in the eyes of consumers and colleagues. To help you make that choice, we’ve broken some of our top print method recommendations down by which industries and applications they serve best.

Education & Training

Print Needs: Educational institutions and training events tend to require larger, more information-dense print materials. This includes bound publications, such as training manuals and course catalogs, and folded items like recruitment brochures. Durability is often critical, since many of these resources need to be referenced repeatedly or carried around by the user. 

Wallace Carlson Solution: Offset printing helps keep costs down for large page-volume runs. It also accommodates a wider variety of paper stocks, allowing for thicker and more durable covers on reference materials. Also worth considering are specialty finishes that increase visual appeal and durability, such as UV gloss, lamination, and spiral/wire-o binding.

See more: Print Solutions for Training and Education

Healthcare

Print Needs: Healthcare institutions often require a mix of long-form publications, like directories, and short-form prints like brochures, medical forms, and letters. Packaging for welcome kits and pharmaceuticals is another common category. Healthcare also has the added concern of privacy, with many healthcare prints being subject to HIPAA compliance regulations regarding confidential patient information. 

Wallace Carlson Solution: The combination of variable data printing and secure data handling makes it easy for Wallace Carlson to print and distribute personalized healthcare communications that are fully HIPAA compliant. These capabilities even extend to custom printing, assembly, and kitting for packages like patient welcome kits.

See more: Print Solutions for Healthcare

Finance & Professional Services

Print Needs: Financial institutions and other professional operations often require high-volume runs of products like branded stationery and employee reference materials. On the other hand, they’ll also use smaller runs of high-end prints, like annual reports and investor presentations, to communicate with investors and other VIPs.

Wallace Carlson Solution: Offset lithography printing offers the highest print quality in commercial printing and the best ROI for high-volume print runs. As for prints that need to impress, offset printing is also unmatched in its finish and material flexibility. From compelling finishes like metallic foil, spot gloss, and soft touch, to luxury papers and precision PMS inks, it’s easy to create prints that wow.

See more: Print Solutions for Finance and Professional Services

Retail & Product-Based Businesses

Print Needs: Retailers, manufacturers, and distributors regularly require custom packaging and displays that are vivid, eye-catching, and sturdy. Other common print materials include product tags, promo inserts, and promotional mail. These materials frequently need to be produced at high volume, quickly, without sacrificing quality or consistency.

Wallace Carlson Solution: Nothing helps products stand out better than custom packaging and displays, particularly when they take full advantage of the finish options available with offset printing. Custom die-cutting, glitter, raised UV, and metallic foil finishes all help enhance brand appeal and draw consumer attention, whether on a crowded store shelf or tucked into a mailbox.

See more: Print Solutions for Products and Retail

Nonprofits & Associations

Print Needs: Nonprofits use a lot of print materials to court donors, including letters, postcards, donation forms, newsletters, donor packets, event invites, and annual reports. Depending on the type of nonprofit, they may also require significant print materials for volunteers, service recipients, or staff. While these materials vary in terms of design and complexity, cost-effectiveness is key across the board to maximize often-limited non-profit resources.

Wallace Carlson Solution: For large volume runs of all types of print materials, offset printing is the most budget-efficient option. It also offers sharp, vivid image quality, critical for compelling communications. And when materials need an elevated touch, such as for donor recognition or fundraising gala events, finishes like metallic foil and high-end papers are easy to incorporate.

When to Ask for Guidance

If you’re ever unsure which print methods are right for your application and budget, Wallace Carlson is just a click or call away. We’re here to answer your questions and help you find the ideal solution for your organization’s needs, no matter what that looks like. From choosing your materials and finishes to helping you refine your design, we’ll work with you every step of the way and ensure your final results are exactly what you were dreaming they’d be. Simply reach out today to get started!