Summit Speaker Spotlight: Juriaan van Beelen, Print.com

The second FuturePrint Virtual Summit will be taking place from October 12th to October 16th. Juriaan van Beelen, Chief, Co-creation at Print.com is a FuturePrint Virtual Summit speaker, and we caught up with him to discuss his business, its reaction to COVID-19, and print’s future.

Before print.com what is your experience of print?

I started my print journey at DVC.nl, one of the leading companies in flag screen and digital printing. After that I worked at Drukwerkdeal.nl and Printdeal.be, which was acquired by Cimpress in 2014. After that I had few other projects still in the printing industry, as freelance consultant.

What is Print.com?

Print.com is a web application exclusively dedicated to graphic professionals, like designers, local printers, copyshop, signmakers and in-house marketers. A closed application that allows professionals from the industry to order print as fast as possible, allowing them to choose from a large variety of products and different types of finishing. About 70% of the products sold are being produced in-house. We have been co-creating the application together with our clients from the beginning, resulting in groundbreaking features that makes daily life of a graphic professional easier, because we came up with these specific features and products together with them.

COVID-19 has posed challenges, has this affected your strategy and plans?

It did, yes. Of course we were worried, like everyone when COVID-19 set foot in Europe. Our revenue dropped, it was a very insecure period. But it also made us creative and even more focused on what matters most to us: the relationship with our clients. Since we were already in daily contact with them in order to understand what their needs were, we came up with some innovative and helpful tools to help them fighting the ongoing storm. We have made several improvements on our web app, created a few inspirational landing pages with content that was ready to be shared with their own clients through their own marketing channels (like covid.print.com). We also added plenty of products that sold very well during the crisis (and still). What I personally remember very well, is the moment when we decided to call every client when they would place an order, to thank them. Being truly grateful for one's action or behaviour (in this case placing an order at Print.com, which they could have also done elsewhere) creates an immediate bond. Very simple : we just called people, saying: ''Hey, I really appreciate that you placed an order with us, thank you''. I remember that many clients were thanking us for taking the time to call them, some of them also mentioned that they never had such an experience with a supplier. Deep and honest conversations followed, resulting in connecting on a deeper level between humans, not only talking about the business.

Do you think print still has a positive future?

Yes, of course. Have a look at generation Z. Research has shown that targeting a youngster through Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok is very hard due to the amount of content on those platforms. Giving someone a beautifully printed flyer, on nice paper, with cool finishing (contour cut, foil, you name it)...triggers different senses, rather than the eyes only. Also look at prints on clothing for businesses. I am not expecting an SME (like gardeners for example) to work on your backyard with the logo of their business tattooed on their forehead!

Would you give any advice to any other print professional about growing business?

Keep on looking for what your clients really wants to get from their collaboration with you. Talk to them, ask them questions from time to time: ''How do you like our relationship?'' ''Is there anything we can do to make you happier?''. Believe me, you will be surprised by the answers you will get. You will see how much it can improve your day-to-day business. 

You can find out more about the FuturePrint Virtual Summit here.

You can find out more about Print.com here.