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Printing Industry Exchange (printindustry.com) is pleased to have Steven Waxman writing and managing the Printing Industry Blog. As a printing consultant, Steven teaches corporations how to save money buying printing, brokers printing services, and teaches prepress techniques. Steven has been in the printing industry for thirty-three years working as a writer, editor, print buyer, photographer, graphic designer, art director, and production manager.

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Custom Printing: Thoughts on Promotional Magnets

A friend and colleague in the commercial printing field recently brought to my attention a flyer from a magnet company, or, more specifically, a manufacturer of magnetic paper used for custom printing.

At first glance this seemed like a mundane topic. After all, everyone has magnets on their refrigerators, (calendars or ads for some car company or plumber). But as I thought about it further, I realized a few intriguing things.

Magnets Are Effective Marketing Tools

The effectiveness of a promotional item is directly proportional to the number of times a client sees it. Think of it as a form of subtle hypnotism. If a potential client to which you have sent a calendar magnet refers to this calendar every day for a year and then needs someone in your particular field for an upcoming job, whom do you think he or she will call? Who will be “top of mind,” as the marketers say. You. And your phone number will be immediately available because you will have included it on your refrigerator magnet.

Magnets Can Be Printed in a Number of Ways

The particular flyer my friend and colleague sent me included the following kinds of custom printing for which its magnetic paper would be ideal: “laser, flexo, offset.” After reading this, when I was doing further research on the Internet, I also saw reference to gravure and inkjet printing, as well as to serigraphy (or custom screen printing).

What this means is that you have a lot of options for printing on magnetic paper, ranging from extra long press runs (with “static” imagery; that is, type/art that doesn’t vary) on gravure equipment to extra short press runs or even one copy on digital printing equipment. You can even personalize each and every magnet. Your magnet printing job can therefore be economical because the technology can be directly tailored to your budget and business goals.

You Can Even Print Magnets Yourself on Your Office Printer

Upon further research, I also learned that you can buy small-form magnetic press sheets that will fit in your home or office digital laser or inkjet printer. Some of these come from the stationery store on a pre-die-cut sheet, so after you print the job, you can just peel the backing and scrap away to reveal a die cut oval or other standard-shaped magnet. Other options for magnetic paper might not have this die cut feature, but given the relative thinness of the magnetic sheet (a thin plastic substrate just a bit thicker than a heavy-weight business card), you could just cut it with a scissors.

Or You Can Have Your Commercial Printing Provider Print and Diecut the Magnet

One of the printers to whom I bring my clients’ commercial printing work has a Mimaki inkjet press and plotter. When you go to the printer’s website, you can see a short video of this equipment both printing the magnets (it can also produce die cut labels) and then trimming the intricate contours of the magnets with a plotting knife. I believe lasers can be configured to do the same thing on some other digital presses. What you get in this case is the expanded color gamut of your printer’s inkjet (up to seven or eight colors) plus the custom magnet shapes such large format print-and-cut equipment can produce.

What Are Some of the Options?

I mentioned calendars before, and these definitely are great for reinforcing your brand, but there are other options as well.

You may have one or more trucks in your business. For those who don’t want the added expense of “car wraps,” painted signs, or other high-ticket marketing options, you can spend relatively little for large, durable magnets you can just attach to the left and right doors of your truck. While not as striking as a car wrap, this product will still make a professional statement while displaying your phone number to prospective clients. And the car signs I have seen are also durable: 30pt in thickness.

Magnetic business cards are another option. These can stick to the metal on your desk and be immediately available when you need a phone number. Larger versions of the same thing (i.e., postcard-sized magnets) may be of interest as well. Since they are larger than the business card format, they will command more attention.

Things to Think About

About a year ago, I presented a nature seminar about magnetism. It was for the autistic students with whom we do art therapy. So in preparing for the seminar I learned quite a bit about magnetism. Interestingly enough, I learned that heat kills magnets (just as banging the magnet against something kills the magnetism). For some reason, both the heat and the jarring of the magnet cause the electrons to reposition themselves, which reduces or eliminates the magnetic charge.

In light of this, what I find interesting about digital printing on magnets is that manufacturers seem to have resolved this liability. After all, laser printers expose the magnetic sheets to especially high temperatures to fuse the toner to the substrate.

That said, storing the magnetic paper would still probably require a reasonable room temperature.

Another thing to consider is that some magnetic paper can be magnetized by the user. In the case of the flyer that my friend and colleague sent me (for Flexible Magnet Company, China), a special tool can be purchased and rolled across the surface of the magnetic paper to magnetize it either before or after printing.

Apparently an electric charge from this special roller tool brings the electrons into alignment in the paper to infuse it with a magnetic charge. This seems to be a major selling point, since time can also erode the magnetism of a product. I had a stack of printed refrigerator magnets to be used in a future art project. They were in the (hot) art studio for a number of years, and when I checked them out recently, their magnetic charge had diminished significantly. Such a tool as Flexible Magnet’s magnetizing product can ostensibly turn otherwise useless inventory back into functional magnets.

Finally, printed magnets are cheap. They are the postcards of magnetic marketing (lots of bang for the buck). The business card magnets, postcard magnets, save-the-date magnets, and heavy duty car magnets can project a professional brand image even for a business on a limited budget.

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