Page 65 - Print 21 Magazine Jul-Aug 2020

Trade Printing
Guru assisting printers
into labels with marketing
Trade label printer Guru Labels is making its marketing collateral available to printers to help them grow their label service in the Covid era with its high demand for labels.
Innovative printer Guru Labels is releasing a batch of marketing collateral for its resellers to go to market with.
Nick Lowe, managing director of Guru, said, “Many smaller printers do not have their own marketing people, but are aware the demand for labels as we go through the Covid time is growing strongly.
“So, Guru is making its own marketing collateral available to printers, they just go onto the website to the reseller portal, their own logos and phone numbers are added, and they can download and print.
“They can then go to the different markets with the collateral, whether that is for instance the wine
sector, or coffee bags, or their local mechanics for service slips.”
Guru Labels has 100 different flyers for different sectors, with a dozen so far available, Lowe says the others are being refreshed and will be up “soon”.
Lowe said, “A lot of smaller printers are suffering a big drop
in commercial orders with the virus, but the label sector is strong. With Guru, they effectively have
a labels-manufacturing arm, now the collateral means they can go
to market, take orders, have the job printed and delivered, with no investment needed, apart for some time.”
Guru has some 1200 printers around the country on its books. It operates from its new factory on the Central Coast of NSW and has just installed its second Xeikon digital label press.
Lowe says the decision to buy the second Xeikon 3300 was inevitable in order to match the growth in business and the commitment to customer deadlines. While doubling production capacity is often the start of a frenzied campaign to increase sales, He is content to let growth come organically. He wants to
keep at least 25 per cent of the new machine’s capacity free to meet the unexpected.
“When we bought the first machine it was printing at nine metres a
minute, which is how it comes out of the box. We then had it upgraded to nineteen metres per minute, which was wonderful. But even that wasn’t enough in the end. That’s why we ended up with the second Xeikon 3300.”
The relationship between a printer and his primary technology brand goes deep. Lowe is an enthusiastic supporter of Xeikon. Now that the seminal digital press has found safe harbour as part of Flint Group, he is confident it will make up for lost time in staking its place in the industry.
Label marketing collateral: Guru Labels making it available to printers
“With Guru, they effectively have a labels-manufacturing arm, now the collateral means they can go to market, with no investment needed, apart from some time.”
“I believe Xeikon and Flint are on the cusp of great things. We get great support from them, outstanding customer service, and it’s really appreciated. You always feel you can do more when momentum is building and that’s happening now. If Xeikon does well, we will automatically benefit as well.”
As the industry shifts, so the market has changed dramatically
– ironically, while short-run digital printing has become widely accepted, run lengths have increased. Lowe said, “The longer we’ve stayed in this market, we’ve seen average run sizes increase. Many of our print runs are now starting to eat into what used
to be seen as traditional print runs. That’s why we needed the extra capacity. When we first started, our average run length was 18 linear metres, which is nothing, right? Now it’s much closer to 100 metres.” 21
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