Now, don’t get me wrong; the industry has made great investments and strides into assembling some of the greatest and coolest technology out there. From new advancements in sheetfed printings to short-run digital print, variable capabilities, web-to-print, and expanded colour gamut, the list goes on. But how do we perceive these advances against what’s happening in other industries that are inhabited by our (as well as potential) clients? Print lovers who have lived in our industry over the past decades will tell you there is still a place for print in the world, that it means something to folks and can still be useful to organizations outside the publication sector. But do we really agree with that? More importantly, do our future customers and partners agree with that? Do we know our future customers? Why is it that we, as a collective group, only see advancements in technology as a way to better serve our current crop of customers, a group that is constantly dwindling due to market variables. Have we thought about the lack of knowledge regarding print in the digital-native generation, which includes millennials and the groups that came after them. With the age of AI (artificial intelligence) upon us, how will we, as an industry, shift focus to educate the world on print.

Power of data

It’s time for us to not only look at print technology, but also how we can incorporate print into existing tech. Online privacy laws have become much more restricted with stricter ad-blocks for digital advertising and a need for opt-in-consent of emails. As a result, organizations will lose the ability to reach out to the masses and generate revenue. Variable printing is an attractive option in these times. It is extremely powerful and has a higher success and open rate than traditional printed pieces, but let’s dig a little deeper.

Our clients have powerful CRM software that houses a lot of data about their customers. They might not understand how to target market different segments of that information to maximize their objectives. They may understand that they have data, but at the same time, they might be purchasing new leads lists because they want to grow by X per cent year over year. How about helping them better understand their own data? What if you could show them that 60 per cent, for example, made it to the checkout page and only 18 per cent made the purchase. What can we do with that information? Well, for starters, we take the time to help clients understand the metrics behind variable print—explain to them variable printed pieces have an open rate of 79 per cent, per my company’s internal data metrics, and if you sent an individually messaged note to more than 10,000 prospects, there’s an eight/10 chance for them to make a sale or garner more attention to their physical or online storefront. The key is to incorporate digital data the client has and automate it into a print process. If we can unify these two worlds, then we will have a two-pronged approach to generate revenue. This will open doors to new markets.

I bet you’re wondering what the ROI is on these types of personalized notes. However, what’s more important is to understand what that ROI means to a customer and where it can be seen along the sales process.

Is there a place in this world for print? Absolutely. Can the industry be perceived as cool and fun in the global marketplace? Yes, no doubt. There is a place for print to be more functional, a place where we can intertwine it with the latest technologies and provide our industry with a different set of product offerings. These solutions will continue to educate people on the relevance of print for generations to come and in a world where we stand as tall as digital.

The bottom-line is that print is here to stay, so let’s get creative albeit in a different way.

A.J. Rai is the vice-president of sales at Mitchell Press, Burnaby, B.C. He can be reached at ajrai@mitchellpress.com.

This column originally appeared in the January/February 2024 issue of PrintAction.

All respond to the consumer’s desire to feel special, valued and understood. This next level ability to communicate is delivered by hyper personalization. Rather than focusing on segments or groups, it concentrates on the individual. We also know it as one-to-one marketing, of course. It uses big data, artificial intelligence, and data analytics including customer scoring, in real time to deliver products, content, and experiences tailored to each customer’s unique needs, preferences, and context. Going beyond simple facts like a customer’s name, geographic location, demographic data, and search and purchase history, it accesses more advanced and complex information. This can include a customer’s purchasing behaviour, browsing activity, response rates to notifications and times when they are active. Artificial intelligence analyses the data and creates insights that help businesses deliver highly customized campaigns. It increases the likelihood that communications contain optimal content as well as enhances customer satisfaction.

There are at least five reasons for brands to make hyper personalization a part of their marketing strategy:

• Increased revenue –  An Accenture Interactive report found that 91 per cent of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that recognize, remember, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations. Offering a hyper personalized experience demonstrates that customers matter. As a result, they are more likely to make purchases and become repeat customers. For example, in the insurance industry the first sale is often made at a loss to act as a “door opener” that leads to selling more insurance. This makes for a complex customer relationship that’s by definition “sticky”. This principle applies also to B2B marketing, especially with follow up sales.
• Better customer experience – An accurate understanding of a customer eliminates irrelevant interactions, thereby ensuring time and effort efficiency for communications. It increases engagement and helps deliver information that is interesting, valuable, and memorable. Research by Boston Consulting Group discovered that customers who experienced a high level of personalization provided customer loyalty scores 20 per cent higher than those who experienced a low level of personalization.
• Reduced customer churn – Winning customers is a lot more expensive than retaining them. Hyper personalization is a proven way to maintain brand interest. It is even expected – a McKinsey report found 71 per cent of consumers want companies to deliver personalized interactions. And 76 per cent get frustrated when this doesn’t happen.
• Boosts marketing ROI – Marketing is a huge business cost if not implemented effectively. Return on investment is shaped by three metrics: conversion rate, average order value, and customer acquisition costs. Hyper personalization delivering accurate and relevant targeting of products and messaging increases the first two and lowers the last one. In fact, Econsultancy reported 80 per cent of companies experienced an uplift following the implementation of personalization.
• Dynamic targeting – Hyper personalization is dynamic. Data is updated – unlike traditional personalization where, once the information is collected, it is not checked. It reflects changing customer needs, preferences, and behaviours such as life milestones and new interests.

Brands can enjoy all of these with creative digital print that delivers highly customized content and offers that drive action. Highly impactful, meaningful, and measurable communications can be created that ensure your clients’ customers feel understood and valued as well as keep them connected and encourage long-term loyalty.

Erwin Busselot is director Business Innovation & Solutions, Ricoh Graphic Communications, Ricoh Europe.

In this hectic environment of endless choices, brands aiming to last and be profitable must find ways to stand out from the crowd. Revolutionized by the internet, marketing has become a crucial element of any business plan, with companies dedicating significant resources to it.

However, not all types of marketing can fulfil a company’s objectives. Today, customers are more market-aware, more demanding and less brand-loyal, meaning companies must be very smart and design an effective marketing strategy that will truly reflect their values and products, differentiate from competitors and ultimately, and most importantly, drive sales.

By ‘effective marketing,’ we don’t mean that we must favour digital (or modern) marketing – quick to implement – and forget about offline (or traditional) marketing. Instead, effective marketing means defining a powerful strategy with original, creative, and thoughtful ideas that will make an impact on our target audience, supported by consistent, coherent, and clever messages as well as followed by a well-defined and timely action plan.

Now we know what’s needed to achieve effective marketing, let’s talk about implementing it. Great marketing ideas often die because companies fail to implement them properly. On the other hand, good marketing ideas can become an incredible success when they are flawlessly implemented.

For reasons that vary depending on the company’s type or products, nowadays many brands solely focus on digital marketing. They invest from modest budgets to millions of dollars in Google and YouTube ads, Instagram videos, TikTok clips, web banners, SEO and SEM, hiring influencers to promote their products, etc. To survive, these brands need a constant market presence online, continuously delivering new content and being ever more creative and compelling. If they don’t, it’s just a matter of time before these brands fade and die.

At first, digital marketing may seem fun, modern, and less costly than printed marketing. However, there’s a high risk involved in advertising your brand exclusively through digital marketing: due to the huge volume of content available on the Internet and the usually short attention span of online customers, your brand will be competing with millions of other brands and can be quickly forgotten and replaced by one more active, more pervasive, or trendier than yours.

We always tell our customers that online marketing is like a fireplace: the moment you start burning fewer logs than your competitors, your fire will eventually go out. Branding your product online is a constant battle to burn more and more logs!

So, even though online marketing is a must and can bring significant benefits, we must not ignore the enormous influence of offline marketing in helping shape consumer behaviour and the amplified benefits of mixing both types of marketing.

By engaging multiple senses, sensory
marketing can help brands create a lasting impression on consumers. Photo © Drupa

Sensory marketing

While digital marketing reaches the sight and hearing of customers, brands must use a combination of printed, physical, and offline marketing to reach all five senses: smell, vision, taste, hearing and touch.

Due to the vast amounts of information we receive every day, our brains can only retain what makes a strong impression on us by creating a memorable experience. Of course, emotions play a very important role in making an experience memorable. The more senses are involved in that experience or event, the more impactful it will be.

Sensory marketing is a form of marketing that targets customers’ senses to create an emotional connection with a product or brand. It utilises a variety of sensory stimuli to influence consumer behaviour. By engaging multiple senses, sensory marketing can help brands create a lasting impression on consumers. Sensory marketing can also be used to influence consumer behaviour. For example, research has shown that certain scents can increase sales, while certain colours can influence consumer perceptions of a product’s quality.

Printed marketing materials help achieve goals

Overall, sensory marketing has become an increasingly important tool for brands looking to create memorable customer experiences and drive sales. On many occasions, sensory marketing can only be achieved with the help of printed materials, such as a magazine advert that includes a sample of a hand lotion or a perfume, or a high-level financial services company that sends its prospect customers a copy of their new corporate brochure printed on a special substrate that reflects wealth and prestige.

Printed materials such as brochures, catalogues and flyers are physical items that remain in potential customers’ hands, making them easier to revisit and recall, read at their leisure, and even share with others. For instance, when a company is exhibiting at a tradeshow, distributing printed product brochures or postcards (instead of a PDF or an email) inviting customers to join a company event can make the difference between a potential customer forgetting about the brand or remembering it long after the tradeshow has ended.

Printed marketing materials can be very cost-effective, as they can be produced digitally at an affordable cost and strategically placed in locations where the target audience is most likely to be. A typical example: a real estate company placing flyers about a new housing development in local cafes or grocery stores to reach their target audience.

Printed marketing can also help build brand recognition by using distinctive substrates, designs, fonts, and colour schemes that people associate with the company. This strategy can be highly effective in creating a loyal customer base more likely to remember the company, its products, and services in the future.

Finally, printed marketing can help a company establish credibility and trust in the eyes of potential customers. Companies that invest in quality printed marketing give the impression that they are serious about their business and are generally seen as more trustworthy than those relying solely on digital marketing. This, in turn, can lead to increased confidence from potential customers and greater brand recognition as well.

In conclusion, despite the rise of digital marketing, offline marketing remains an essential part of any effective marketing strategy as very often it involves ‘touching’ the customers’ five senses. Brands that decide to include printed material in their marketing mix to provide a tangible means of accessing information are a step ahead in establishing credibility and trust among their target audience.

Montserrat Petit is the founder and managing director of marketing agency MOND Marketing On Demand. This article was originally published in Drupa Essentials of Print Series.

He explains that, as a result, marketeers can lose sight of the fundamentals – human behaviour. He states: “Ultimately marketing, or sales, or advertising is all about behaviour change. We want people to buy our brands, buy more of our brands, switch to our brands and tell their friends about our brands. It is all about human behaviour.”

A lot of time, money and energy can be wasted doing what is thought to be new and cool if it misses understanding:

• why we, as consumers, make the choices we do;
• why we like certain brands and not others; and
• how communication works in the brain.

Brand marketeers are encouraged to optimize the path to purchase as that can help. Taking a behavioural lens to a customer journey and analyzing what the behaviour is now and what the desired behaviour is, should help with successful mapping. Different techniques should then be applied across the various stages of the journey. Classic A/B testing is one tried and tested option.

Key too, is consistency of messaging and consistency of look and feel across the different journey points. Often different people in separate departments are responsible for unrelated touchpoints or sectors of the customer journey. Unless they are all aligned, and what is trying to be achieved is properly understood, the journey can become disjointed.

Gaps can then open up between the strategy and execution. And the whole approach is compromised.

There are several ways digital print can help optimize the customer journey with consistent, informative, and impactful communications.

It can help create:

• timely, targeted, educational promotions and refined offers with cleaner, more accurate, and better segmented data;
• impactful personalization that makes the customer feel individually valued;
• a marketing asset management) system can also be adopted to help ensure brand guidelines are met and a consistent look and feel is applied across the different journey points;
• engaging messages and visually exciting communications that can enliven print on a wide range of media with spot colours, fluorescent effects using neon toners, white toner, and metallic effects;
• memorable interactions with tactile substrates that can be employed to stimulate the sense of touch for a greater feeling of connectivity;
• increased interactivity between on- and off-line worlds with printed QR codes and augmented reality (AR) for a more seamless experience.

The combination of the above can determine a connected journey that recognizes the individuality of the customer and makes them feel valued. It builds trust. It gets results.

Digital printing technology can thus support your marketing clients in their quest for building and sustaining optimized customer journeys.

The study explores what increasingly cautious consumers expect, how and why they decide to purchase and, more importantly, how businesses can direct their efforts to adapt. Back in 2016, when BDC conducted a similar study, millennials were driving the hyper-connected consumer revolution, sharing platforms were just emerging and there was a need to better target consumers with personalized messages and experiences.

“These trends have become part of our daily lives, and we realize that they are associated with the larger trend of consuming and owning less, whether it’s a conscious choice or to save costs,” says Pierre Cléroux, vice-president, research and chief economist at BDC. “Today’s prudent consumers have different expectations; it’s important to keep these in mind when adjusting to shifts in their behaviour.”

For example, bringing sustainability to all aspects of the business, as well as promoting sustainability efforts, can go a long way.

The study sheds light on three emerging trends with important implications for all businesses, regardless of size or industry.

The client always comes first
Just over a third of Canadian businesses (34 per cent) have redesigned the customer experience, even though most consumers (over 90 per cent) strongly agree that a simple and satisfying experience is fundamental to the consumer-business relationship.

Proactively managing online reviews can help entrepreneurs who have a strong presence with younger generations keep track of what’s being said online and correct points of misinformation. Technology can help for many aspects of the clients’ journey, including marketing automation, e-commerce websites and identifying the right channels to effectively deliver customer service.

Consuming less is more
Only one in 10 businesses offer a way for consumers to purchase used, refurbished, or returned merchandise. Entrepreneurs are not honing in on a trend that appeals highly to millennials, Gen X and baby boomers alike. In fact, almost two-thirds (61 per cent) of consumers prefer to live simply.

Entrepreneurs can help their clients consume less by rethinking their product design to improve their environmental footprint. Another prime example of appealing to different generations is to segment messages to personalize communications based on past purchasing behaviour.

It’s not me, it’s you
Consumers want businesses to inspire trust, and just over half of them (56 per cent) have stopped buying from companies whose business practices they don’t agree with. To be a better corporate citizen, entrepreneurs can consider third-party certification to acknowledge they live up to the highest standards. Knowing what makes their customers tick shows that they care and helps them stand out from competitors.

To increase the reach and relevance of its support to entrepreneurs, BDC also analyzed each trend’s importance according to Gen Z, millennial, Gen X, and baby boomer generations. Age matters: few businesses (29 per cent) are taking a generational approach to the products and services they offer, although behaviour, values, and beliefs vary by age. For instance, environmental considerations are more important for millennial consumers. Taking a generational approach to understanding purchasing behaviour can be valuable to businesses looking to better target their customers, as not all trends are expressed the same way.

The study presents the trends and insights drawn from an anonymous survey of 1,983 Canadian adult members of the Angus Reid Group’s consumer panel and 759 Canadian SME business leaders, members of the BDC ViewPoints panel. The results of these surveys have been weighted to represent both Canadian consumer and business populations.

Speakers from RBC Royal Bank, Staples Canada, Canada Post and Flash Reproductions shared valuable insights that would help print leaders be better prepared to understand client needs in greater detail and develop strategies for long-term success.

Retail merchandising
Grace Chan, vice-president from RBC, shared insights from a financial services merchandizing perspective. One purpose of printed material and display graphics is to start conversations between customers and their staff. This is intended to lead to a discussion on solutions that can be provided. Exterior graphics can be used to attract and engage consumers from the community. This can include socially conscious and/or seasonal themes, or product and solution themes that are co-ordinated with messaging from other media.

Once inside the branch, there are other types of graphic communication and printed materials with different messaging intended to create client interest in products or services. All this printed material are only components of a sophisticated messaging system designed to inform and assist clients to engage and benefit from financial services and available solutions.

Direct mail
Sylwia Plawinski from Canada Post shared many insights on how marketers can use data and visualization to deliver results. After all, if clients conduct direct mail programs, and do not achieve results, then they will not continue. We must always be mindful that our clients are not buying printed products from us but are investing in the benefits of the printed products.

Plawinski shared six key purposes of direct mail initiatives to emphasise the importance of using data to identify and target your priority customers. Canada Post tools providing measurements and data analytics that can be used to prove and improve results were also shared during the discussion.

Digital printed products
Brendan Ireland from Staples Canada provided positive news that the trend for digital product demand has grown consistently over the past five years, while some areas of industry are in decline. Another interesting observation is the increase in cloud printing due to changes in the workplace and reduced in-office time for employees.

Customer expectations have changed. Whether they are end-consumers or businesses, they expect on-demand delivery. The impact of reduced volumes has resulted in more frequent printing of smaller quantities. However, pricing pressure remains from all customer segments. There was a brief period when demand exceeded supply due to supply chain issues. Pricing pressure was not severe then but has now returned.

Packaging unique products
Rich Pauptit, president of Flash Reproductions, showed samples of some of their products. Flash works closely with the design community to bring unique ideas to life. Their clients require products that stand out and leave an impression on the end-user. It is often intended to provide a positive opinion of the customer and/or item enclosed. Their goal is to be remembered and stand out from competition—‘impress, engage and be remembered.’

This event was a great opportunity to gain an understanding and a reminder to continue to focus on customer needs and ask clients key questions that go beyond, ‘what do you need?’ Explore why do they need it and how are they going to use the printed piece. Successful salespeople understand and advise clients on what will work best for their needs.

Bob Dale is co-founder of Connecting for Results, the premier management consulting company focused on the graphics communications industry. He can be reached at b.dale@cfrincorporated.com.

Marketing optimization starts with the four Rs which make up the baseline benchmark:

1. Reach – Estimated number of potential clients you can talk to with the campaign.
2. Response – Indicators of marketing success including website traffic growth, sales qualified leads generated, sales opportunities and e-commerce basket fulfilment.
3. Revenue – A clear business outcome demonstrated with a sales conversion; but are they are the right clients to meet the business objectives?
4. Retention – Maximize return on your marketing investment by establishing the opportunity for customer relationship management (CRM) and understand how much investment will be required to create such a relationship.

A direct link between marketing performance and business success should be established by setting realistic and relevant business priorities and marketing objectives. It should be a simple evaluation structure that’s obvious and easy for any team member to understand.

Important too is an attainable return on investment (ROI) defined by carefully considered strategies, tactics, and channels. By testing and learning the most effective content, creative, offers and promotions can be identified. When and where, and which target audience is most profitable questions can also be answered.

To identify improvements, set best performance benchmarks by evaluating the total number of impressions your campaigns have generated and what percentage of those have filtered down to responses, qualified leads, sales conversions, and revenue.

Essential to keep sight of is customer acquisition cost (CAC), calculated by comparing the amount of money invested in attracting clients with the numbers of actual clients gained. Strategies that can help include conversion rate optimization (CRO) to make it easy and obvious for visitors to convert to leads, adding value, creating a client referral programme, and streamlining your sales cycle. Consider too customer lifetime value (LTV) or the predicted revenue that one client will generate over the course of their relationship with your organization. It represents the ultimate ROI – a strong, growing relationship that evolves to become client advocacy.

The clear communication of results attained can be provided in a marketing report that states how the campaign’s client touchpoints performed. It should draw connections with the wider business to remain relevant, provide details on engagement (reach), conversion (response) and ROI (revenue) as well as also forecasting retention. The report can be used to shape future marketing strategy and tactics, as well as define the budget investment.

In a highly active and agile world marketing needs to constantly move forward. With marketing optimization, print service providers (PSPs) can learn just as much, if not more, from a failure as they can from success, and identify ways to do better, achieve more and increase ROI. It allows you to explore opportunities and accurately assess results that will help define future approaches.

Mark Hinder is responsible for business development programmes, Graphic Communications, Ricoh Europe.

In a world of highly targeted, personalized marketing communication, sustained customer relationships are created across multiple communication platforms. Customer engagement marketing (CEM) is vital. CEM happens when brands use personalized communication to guide their audience through a planned customer journey. From lead to sale, it’s all about a welcoming and nurturing a relationship.

Customer engagement can take a number of different forms.

Creating impactful content
Content provides the substance to your communication, gives it purpose and ultimately, delivers the tactics to meet the strategy. Brands use great content for acquisition and retention. To achieve that, identify who you want to be your company’s spokesperson and develop interesting content that resonates. Your content should address your audience directly and respond to their wants and needs. Creating and publishing appropriate content means you’ll need to fully understand the customer lifecycle states, which range from prospect to new customer to loyal brand fan, and their pain points. Offering solutions will be valuable. Examples include ‘5 Top Tips,’ ‘4 How Tos’, or ‘3 Did You Knows.’

Being creative
You don’t have to be a creative genius to produce great marketing creative. However, you do need to know what’s relevant to your clients to build a foundation for compelling creativity that engages, inspires, and sells. Start with a creative audit that evaluates every aspect of your business. Then, look at ways to stand out and establish common ground with your audience. Colour your creativity to influence people’s moods, productivity, and behaviour. Research from the CCI Colour Institute and the University of Winnipeg indicates that between 60 and 90 per cent of our judgements on brands, products and our clothing are based on colour. Cool colours like blue and green recede from the eye and are used to calm our reactions. Warm colours, such as red and orange, advance so they increase our heart rate and energy. Paying attention to graphics, fonts and words can also influence tone of voice and grab attention.

Ensuring relevance
Consider how relevant you are to your clients’ wants and needs. Brands tend to be one of the following:

• Customer focused with a customer obsession mindset. They find out who their customers really are, not just what they buy, and meet core wants and needs.
• Pragmatic – they take bold steps, make smart business bets, and often move on from failure and experiments quickly. They have their products available when the customer needs them and can deliver consistent customer experiences.
• Innovative and obsessed with what competitors are doing and what customers are yearning for. They know that without constant innovation, they won’t still be around tomorrow. They create emotional customer connections and earn long-term trust.
• Inspiring industry leaders that push the status quo and engage with their customers in new and creative ways. They also find new opportunities to meet their customers’ wants and needs.
• Achieving relevance is not just about what you say – it’s where and when you say it. Communication must be meaningful, of the right length and in the right place.

Using digital marketing
Explore social platforms and the different communication opportunities they offer, use digital search advertising, and consider digital display advertising. Also transform your website into a dynamic marketing hub and consider how your website can help continue conversations.

Choosing print
People react to print because it’s tactile. It’s a different way to consume communications and therefore works on our subconscious brain in subtle, effective ways. Direct mail is as responsive today as it’s always been and still outperforms social media. A multi-part DM piece demands to be explored in its many component parts. Print has many benefits. For example, brand recall for print ads is higher than for digital display, and printed information requires less effort to process by our overloaded brains.

Wow them with digital print enhancement
Build closer relationships with your clients by demonstrating that you are a partner rather than a supplier. One who is proactive and full of ideas that can support their business. The extraordinary effects and impact that can be conjured up by digital print enhancement make it the kind of suggestion that can earn their trust and loyalty.

Letting your clients have their say
Customer generated marketing (CGM) is changing the way companies seek out, convert, and retain customers in the digitally driven world. It’s a world where people place higher value on the opinions of strangers than they do on established brands. It’s a world where noone is afraid to voice an opinion, or idea, so print companies simply have to listen. It’s also an effective way for you to get great ideas. It works best with loyal fans where client idea generation can be encouraged with incentivization.

These are just some of the many impactful ways customer engagement can be developed. By exploring some, or all, of these print service oroviders can start new conversations with their clients and strengthen existing relationships.

Mark Hinder is responsible for business development programs in the Graphic Communications division of Ricoh Europe.

Earlier this month, RRD announced it had entered into a definitive merger agreement to be acquired by affiliates of Atlas Holdings for $8.52 per share in cash for each share of RRD common stock.

In accordance with the terms of its merger agreement with Atlas, the RRD board of directors will carefully review and consider Chatham’s revised proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interests of the company and RRD shareholders.

Hemlock Printers is one of the largest and most recognized printing companies in North America, operating carbon-neutral from an 80,000-sf facility in Burnaby, B.C.

PDI is the largest independent sheet-fed printing company in Quebec, providing integrated print solutions. We recently spoke to Jamie Barbieri, president of PDI, Jay Mandarino, president and CEO of CJ Graphics, and Richard Kouwenhoven, president and COO of Hemlock Printers, about successfully marketing their companies in today’s challenging environment.

Inspiration

All three industry leaders mentioned Arthurs-Jones as an industry leader that they modelled their companies after. Mandarino shared Duncan McGregor was one of his mentors. Another mentor was Richard Kouwenhoven’s father Dick, who was an equally well-respected industry leader. Duncan has shared with us that he is very impressed with Mandarino’s accomplishments.

Meet client needs

For marketing excellence, the first thing that everyone mentioned was their focus on customer requirements. Companies must understand the clients’ needs, so they can deliver specific solutions. In many cases, there would be a need to develop expertise, customize workflows and use specialized equipment to differentiate the company from competitors.

Once you achieve an in-depth understanding of client needs, and demonstrate the ability to satisfy them, you can expand by offering other customers operating in the same space unique solutions. This could apply to several industries, such as financial, energy, beverage, food service and pharmaceuticals.

Marketing tools

To get the message out, you can adopt traditional marketing tools such as:

• newsletters, brochures and samples to demonstrate quality or techniques (i.e. high-quality bound books);
• press releases and various types of advertisements;
• lunch and learn sessions;
• customer surveys;
• plant tours;
• open house (or in CJ’s case, legendary holiday parties);
• sponsorships;
• quality competitions; and
• participation in trade shows.

There are additional channels that have proven to be effective such as:

• direct mail;
• social media marketing and multi-channel marketing with QR codes, augmented reality and PURLs; and
• support for corporate social responsibility initiatives.

Relationship marketing challenges

While relationship marketing is important, it’s becoming more challenging for print providers, especially with large enterprise or government clients. Many have formal processes and requirements to control the relationships with suppliers, and that lessens the impact of a personal relationship. In other organizations, as the corporations downsize staff, the remaining employees have a greater need to rely on fewer suppliers who have earned trust by demonstrating expertise, quality and superior customer service. The best scenario is when printers develop relationships with customers they ‘partner’ with for a common initiative or cause.

Quality is not the same differentiator as it once was. The industry has transitioned from a ‘craft-based’ one to ‘tech-based’, with advance colour calibration, CTP and advanced and automated technologies. This has led companies like Hemlock to differentiate with sustainability and environmental initiatives. Hemlock, (as well as CJ and PDI) have received many environmental awards from PrintAction’s Canadian Printing Awards.

Prudent tech investments
As these companies have grown with their success, they also have a few things in common. All make smart investments in technology. It is important to have current technology, but not necessary to be on the ‘bleeding’ edge of it. Second, all have developed capabilities to be a ‘one-stop shop’ with investments in pre- and post-press, wide-format, warehousing, kitting and distribution. This has been accomplished by developing internal capabilities and acquiring new ones.

One of the challenges companies face is developing a standard message and training the sales team to share that, especially with fewer tools than were available before the pandemic. Sales staff cannot make appointments to visit a client’s facility and show samples that demonstrate the good work they do.

Additionally, as sales staff progress in their careers, succession planning is critical to ensure there are qualified younger employees who are adept at social media engagement to also build customer relationships, support the good efforts of senior sales staff and carry the torch forward.

We wish to thank Barbieri, Mandarino and Kouwenhoven for sharing their insights with us. This is the sign of true industry leaders.

Bob Dale and Nicole Morrison are with Connecting for Results, Inc. They can be reached at info@connectingforresults.com.

This article originally appeared in the October 2021 issue of PrintAction.

RRD commissioned twin surveys of U.S. marketing professionals and consumers in the summer of 2021 to provide a comparative analysis of consumer preferences and expectations relating to brands and marketers’ assumptions about those preferences. The RRD surveys were conducted by FINN Partners in July 2021 in the U.S. The surveys were conducted online and the data is weighted to be nationally representative. Around 250 marketing professionals across a variety of industry sectors and 1,000 consumers participated in the surveys.

After a year of volatility and transformation, consumers value traditional marketing channels. For nearly a third of consumers (28 per cent), word of mouth is the preferred method for learning about a new brand, product, or service — outpacing social media (23 per cent), cable TV (12 per cent) and online/digital ads (11 per cent). At the same time, a mere four per cent of marketers identified word of mouth as a consumer preference for learning about new brands, products or services. The study also revealed word of mouth has a higher research-to-purchase ratio (40 per cent) than social media (30 per cent), online/digital ads (27 per cent), or print ads (16 per cent).

“In a tumultuous and challenging year, consumers embraced traditional marketing methods as they sought to discover, research and, ultimately, purchase from new brands,” said John Pecaric, president of RRD Marketing Solutions and Business Services. “Based on our survey results, marketers may need to revisit their strategies and assumptions about what customers are looking for and adjust accordingly in order to meet their expectations.”

More than half (51 per cent) of consumers were more excited to receive direct mail in the past year than they were in the year prior, with the highest levels among Gen Y (65 per cent), Gen Z (57 per cent) and Gen X (53 per cent). Baby Boomers are least likely to be excited about receiving direct mail (36 per cent). While 67 per cent of marketers made significant changes to their marketing strategies in the past year, the consumer data suggests marketers should continue to fine-tune their efforts and consider re-investing in traditional marketing channels.

The prestigious honour is showcased in the media brand’s annual Women Influencers issue that demonstrates its dedication to acknowledging and promoting vital contributions made by women in the industry. This year’s cover story highlighted curiosity as a key component of success.

Stacey Sujeebun joined Konica Minolta nearly 10 years ago from the marketing agency side, where she worked as a consultant within brand communication and media agencies in London, providing advice on rebranding, repositioning and stakeholder engagement initiatives. She is a Chartered Institute of Marketing qualified marketing professional, and in perfect alignment with this year’s Women Influencers theme, holds an MSc in Social Anthropology from University College London.

“Being named a Women Influencer by the Cannata Report is something I have aspired to for a number of years, and the theme of this year’s program really struck a chord with me,” said Sujeebun. “The pandemic challenged us to rethink how we do things, find new opportunities and better ways to execute, and that is where the element of curiosity really comes into play. By being curious and asking questions, it allows us to be even more innovative than ever before.”

Sujeebun is best-known throughout Konica Minolta for helping reposition the organization’s reputation from a brand previously known for cameras and printers. She spearheaded the launch of Konica Minolta’s Workplace Hub, unveiling the product to the world’s press at Konica Minolta’s ‘Spotlight’ event in Berlin in March 2017. This was the first global product release of this nature in Konica Minolta’s history, through which it trended on Twitter for the first time, and was cited by the press as producing an ‘Apple-esk’ launch.

In 2018, Sujeebun took on marketing for All Covered, Konica Minolta’s IT services division. Since that time, All Covered has begun to emerge as an industry leader, winning dozens of awards and gaining significant traction in the media, with a noticeable increase in press interviews and articles.

In 2019, she led the company’s marketing efforts at Printing United. The immersive experiences created at Konica Minolta’s exhibit booth by Sujeebun and her team showcased the breadth of Konica Minolta’s print expertise and results from the show went way beyond expectation. Konica Minolta had significantly more traffic than any other booth, and generated sales of nearly 70% over target.

Most recently, when the pandemic changed nearly every aspect of work, Sujeebun encouraged her team to rethink every effort, pivoting quickly to support sales in a world without face-to-face contact and where customer needs were suddenly different. An aggressive virtual event strategy was quickly built out to serve dealers and customers in this new, remote business world to help maintain business continuity.

Read the Cannata Report’s 2021 Women Influencers article.

1. Know your customer
Your customers are the reason you’re in business. But do you know who it is that you’re truly serving? Try this exercise to see how much you know about your typical customer. Sit down with your team to develop persona types. Define their age, gender, interests, hobbies and anything else you can dream up. This will help as you write marketing materials. Personas can determine the tone of voice, language you use and so much more.

2. Use what you know
Branching out is a great idea, but you should never forget the product or service that has gotten you to this point. Ask yourself what’s worked well in the past. Then take it a step further and ask yourself why marketing was particularly successful for a product or service. Do more of the things you’re good at in 2021 for continued success.

3. Invest in your website
A website could make or break your business. That may sound extreme, but it’s entirely true. A website in the 21st century is a source of credibility. If you make it easy to purchase or take next steps, your chances of success skyrocket. Invest in a clean, functional design that leaves no roadblocks to convert a brand-new customer. Make the checkout experience seamless, or the process of contacting you easy.

4. Always use a CTA
CTA stands for “call to action.” There are various types of actions you could want your end-users to take, from “Shop Now” to a simple “Learn More.” Think of your CTA as next steps. While you might think it’s obvious what your audience should do after interacting with your marketing materials, that’s not always the case. Be clear and state exactly what you want them to do.

5. Reevaluate your plans
There’s no shame in changing your game. In order for your business to succeed, you must constantly reevaluate what is working and what is not. Take failed campaigns in stride and try to get to the bottom of the failure. Don’t be afraid to poll your audience to see what they liked and what they didn’t.

6. Simplify your message
Your business has a lot to say, but be careful not to let your excitement take over. Your audience needs a clear, concise message. Choose the most compelling tidbits of information to capture their attention, and consider saving the rest for another campaign. In this case, less is more.

7. Avoid PR blunders
This one sounds like a no-brainer, yet tons of brands make this mistake year after year. The best way to avoid PR mistakes is to err on the side of caution. The person or people in charge of your social media presence should be those with good judgement. Your marketing materials should go through a vetting process. If something doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t.

8. Try something new
You’ll never know unless you try. While you should stick to the tried and true tactics that got you to where you are today, trying something new could be a gamechanger. Consider a new website design, a new social media platform or a completely new marketing strategy.

9. Ask the right questions
Lifelong learners are often great entrepreneurs. That’s because they know that learning is never done, and there are always improvements to be made. Question whether your marketing tactics are truly working. Ask your customers how you’re doing. Gather feedback every chance you can, and then use the feedback to get better.

10. Go with the flow
What works for one business may not work for another. Plans change; take this pandemic, for example. There is no possible way to plan for what the future holds, so the best your business can do is remember to be flexible and agile. When life throws a curveball at you, remember to pivot when needed.
While we can’t guarantee a home run with every marketing campaign, sticking to these golden rules is sure to help you improve your odds of success. By developing clear, concise and creative campaigns, 2021 is sure to be your year. Get out there and put these golden rules into action!

This article was originally published on the Minuteman Press International blog at https://www.minutemanpress.com/news-center/archive.html/article/2021/01/18/10-golden-rules-of-marketing-to-follow-in-2021, and republished in the March 2021 issue of PrintAction.

Most commercial printers, direct mail firms and digital printers produce a significant amount of branded marketing material (70.2 per cent of commercial printers, according to SGIA research). Gartner, Inc., is a leading research and advisory company that has conducted studies on corporate marketing practices and trends. We all know that marketing budgets were reduced in 2020, but one key finding is that now 80 per cent of marketing budgets will be spent on digital channels.

In order to help marketers make informed decisions, they need facts. While many digital channels have analytics and tools to demonstrate effectiveness, there are many studies about the effectiveness of printed communications that also can help sales reps overcome objections.

Here are some resources that should be shared with the sales team to prepare for customer challenges.

Choose Print
This initiative was sponsored by the PIA of Southern California in 2011. The PIA is now the Printing United Alliance, and the CPIA, OPIA and other Canadian affiliates are members. While some of the material has been updated, there are links to other online resources that are current. They include links, material and studies from Two Sides North America, Domtar, International Paper, USPS and others.

Print in the Mix
Print in the Mix is a clearinghouse of curated third-party research demonstrating the effectiveness of print, web, mobile, social media and other formats in the cross-media communications value chain.

The mission is to advocate and educate for the value of print as a viable and effective return on investment in the marketing strategy media mix – alone and working synergistically with other media to drive results.

Print in the Mix was created in 2007 with a grant from the Print Council and is housed at the Rochester Institute of Technology and published by the School of Media Sciences Cross-Media Innovation Center. The Print Council ceased operations in fall 2012 and sponsorship of the Clearinghouse was transferred to RIT.

Canada Post
We can’t forget Canada Post has conducted a number of relevant and current studies that contain facts and case studies on the benefits of direct mail.

In addition to the information contained in the section Direct Mail in the Marketing Mix, you can also subscribe to Incite magazine, which has excellent case studies that are great to share.

Unlike some politicians these days, we need to be able to make a compelling argument using facts to help our clients make informed decisions to choose printed media. I trust you can use and share some of these tools to make a difference. Please share your experience. I’d love to hear from you, so we can share your success stories.

Bob Dale is sr. vice-president of Connecting for Results, Inc. Dale has many years of graphic communication management experience, including over 15 years offering management consulting services, transition execution and support. He was also a part-time faculty member at Ryerson University, and has published many columns on effective cost management and management information systems. Over the past 14 years, he was employed by RBC as a specialist to lead national and international efforts for the effective print category management. He can be reached at b.dale@cfrincorporated.com.

This article was originally published in the January/February 2021 issue of PrintAction.

Many clients are still very cautious about spending marketing dollars when they know that without a doubt, they must. They are looking for creative communication leadership and advice from their best partners, you. We are at least six months into this current crisis and must continue to adapt our business strategies and tactics to suit our clients’ changing needs. Printers need to move beyond social distancing stickers; we need to solve our client’s biggest question: “How do I stay front of mind for my best clients?”

Your response should be an emphatic, “I’m the one who can help you keep your momentum going, adjust your marketing tactics, get personal, and not disappear from your client’s minds!”

Digital first communication

We have all adapted to a world of digital first communication remarkably well in a short period of time. We’re all attending meetings and conferences by Zoom, our electronic outbound marketing (a whole separate conversation) and social media presence has grown exponentially, websites are more important, we are cooking more, drinking more, writing more. So why aren’t we printing more?

Before you help your clients, let’s make sure your own house is in order:

• Are your services as relevant today as they were six months ago?
• Do you provide transactional print, or do you solve your client’s communication problems?
• How easily can new prospects find your website in today’s SEO-optimized world?
• What non-traditional communication services have you added to your core competencies: design, websites, storefronts, fulfillment, packaging, promotional items?
• How do you change your traditional print service model into print communication services that align with a digital first communication strategy?

Digital first communication strategies have exploded and are exceptionally powerful, however, have you noticed the signs of digital fatigue settling in? Print can play an incredibly powerful supporting role to strengthen any digital campaign. Now is the time to have conversations about (re)introducing direct mail into your client’s digital strategy. It’s been proven time and again; the more senses you touch, users experience increased emotional engagement and stronger brand recall. When digital strategies overlap with intelligently planned, well-designed print, impressions stick.

Few people have paid attention to the fact that this recent sharp increase in online advertising is creating huge competition for paid ad word campaigns, causing many common cost-per-click search terms to increase dramatically, which really only benefits Google. All of a sudden, a $2 targeted direct mail unit cost is looking a lot sexier than a $5-per-click digital ad spend.

With this in mind, I’m shocked at how few direct mail pieces have come through my mail slot these past few months, as we now have an audience looking for thoughtful, well designed, tactile stimulation to cut through the digital noise.

Let’s make sure we understand what direct mail is, and better yet, what its potential is.

What is direct mail?

Most people, even many printers, think of ‘direct mail’ as the realtor’s postcard, pizza flyers, restaurant menus or the latest internet service offer that flops through the mail slot. The belief is that ultimately, direct mail is encouraging the reader to visit a website or store, but direct mail is so much more than that.

Work with your client to define who you are targeting:

Target Geography – cover specific geographic areas using specified postal walks, typically created with Canada Post’s Precision targeting tools drawing a defined radius around a business to create broad reach B-C campaigns. Otherwise known as ‘spray and pray’. This works effectively for your local pizza joint, new local businesses in the area, or the latest internet service provider offer.

Target Demographics – we can refine our market audience using 14 demographic categories based on driving distance from your business, household age and income, as well as the type of residence by house, apartment or business. This is great for real estate, senior living services, and home maintenance services.

Target your clients’ Contact Relationship Management (CRM) data – this is free and readily available information to leverage. In a digital first strategy, it’s likely your client has their list finely tuned and can provide it to you. CRMs contain past, current and prospective clients. This can narrow down the search for Business to Business communication. The challenge is ensuring the information is up to date. This can require a little work on your client’s part but honestly, this is their lifeblood and should be well maintained (so should yours!).

Target purchased lists – partner with your local mail shop or list broker to access refined demographic lists targeting your specific prospects. Be sure that you have an appropriate budget and the lists are valid and up to date; you’ll still need to scrub for accuracy. In today’s pandemic environment, even list brokers are scrambling to ensure their information is accurate with so many jobs paused, moved or lost.

Target influencers – Influencer kits are your laser targeted sales tool. These must be designed to appeal to a small audience that holds great social power within a very specific market segment. Who are influencers in your business? They are thought leaders who act as megaphones, spreading brand messages to potential customers. An influencer endorsement means that prospective buyers are more likely to be receptive to your brand message. This is where you show true power in print customization. Playful, exciting and Instagram-worthy, influencer kits present a product like a gift, rather than an envelope.

Here are a few statistics we know about direct mail (according to Canada Post):

• 74 per cent of Canadian consumers always or sometimes notice advertising in direct mail.
• 86 per cent of Canadian consumers open mail that’s personally addressed to them.
• Integrated direct mail and digital campaigns elicit 39 per cent more attention (time spent) than digital campaigns alone.

No doubt, these are difficult times to navigate a business. It is our job as professional communicators to guide our client’s message to market. Do not be excluded from a digital first conversation. Do not let your clients go quiet and disappear. Use your knowledge and know-how to help your clients keep their momentum going, get personal, shift tactics and get noisy.

Scott Gray is vice president of sales and marketing at Mitchell Press in Burnaby, BC. At the forefront of print communication technology through his 30+ year career, Scott is an avid lover of communication design and branding. His efforts have been credited with over twenty Benjamin Franklin Awards for offset and digital print. He has fostered the brand stories of two of Canada’s premier commercial printers, resulting in international recognition and growth in new markets. Scott is a community advocate and mentor for marketing students on the power of print and new media. www.mitchellpress.com

This article was originally published in the October 2020 issue of PrintAction.

What do these companies do that printers don’t? From the website of Innerworkings, the largest print management firm with almost $1 billion in annual revenue, at the core, they: “…leverage our global expertise, certified supplier base, proven methods and proprietary technology. …Services include creative, print, direct mail, branded merchandise, packaging, retail environments, and digital solutions”.

I’m sure if we check out most websites for the progressive printers in Canada and the US, we would find similar value-added statements.

It was announced this summer that HH Global acquired Innerworkings. Both companies act as intermediaries between printers and their former loyal corporate customers. By combining print volumes from many clients, taking advantage of overcapacity in the industry, they have forced printers to accept unsustainable price reductions. The impact has been devastating for many printers.

While pricing has not been sustainable for printers, it appears that the approach was not sustainable for Innerworkings, either. Despite generating over $1 billion in annual revenue, they have not had a profit since 2017.

Print consolidation and bidding software were originally introduced as e-commerce tools with platforms like Impress, Print Café and Collaboria, and procurement tools like Ariba. With the exception of Ariba, the other platforms do not exist. The common premise for these tools was enter the print specifications and use the ecommerce platform to solicit bids from many different suppliers. The problem with that was that it takes expertise to write specifications and also efficiently plan a print order.

Client relationships

Ever wonder how Innerworkings or Xerox got the opportunity to provide print management services and you, the print expert, did not? Besides their brand image, they nurture client relationships at the executive level. Best practices used in large enterprises is to ensure that there is a senior executive relationship with their top-tier suppliers. These relationships are designed to understand current strategy and challenges, industry and technology changes, and together explore strategies to work together to address issues, improve efficiency and ultimately reduce costs. Make sure your sales rep is not the only person that the enterprise customer meets. Build relationships between senior people with the intent to really help and bring true added value to the relationship.

What about the enterprise customer?

Enterprise executives and some senior procurement experts recognize that managing print is different, and there is a complex life cycle with hidden costs that need to be managed. Internal staff don’t have the same expertise and processes offered by major print management firms.

They do not understand the cost impact of the full supply chain, and instead focus on the purchasing function, searching for the lowest unit cost, instead of understanding the impact of creating and version management, warehousing, distribution and obsolescence.

Once the enterprise has outsourced the procurement function, they lose control. They lose visibility of the cost, since the data is now in the vendor’s control and the third party is not passing on all the savings promised. However, the initial problem of lack of expertise and formal process was solved, but often at considerable expense to the organization.

What about the printer?

If your blue-chip enterprise client’s printing is now managed by a third party, here are some suggestions:

• Try to replace that customer with another to retain a direct client relationship.
• Provide full service – explore how you can become a provider for the total supply chain.
• Use your expertise to become a competitor to the print management firm. Can you also provide a full range of marketing solutions, either through internal capabilities or through a strategic relationship with another firm?
• Go online – develop an e-commerce platform and form direct relationships with customers.
• Diversify – explore if you can expand into other areas that your clients will benefit from, like labels, packaging or wide format.

The key to success is owning the relationship with clients. The relationship is your asset – literally – and it’s called goodwill. Recently, Joel Quadracci was interviewed and he was asked where Quad’s sales growth was going to come from. His response was, from Quads’ current customers! His advice was instead of providing a client one or two lines of business, leverage your relationship and sell two, three or four types of business services.

While customers don’t usually care about technology, offering litho and digital is a given, but offering on-site creative and production management support, installation for the wide-format products you produce, distribution and inventory management are all value-added services that many clients need.

The bottom line

• Look at your relationship and business offering from your customers’ perspectives.
• Continually re-assess your value-add and services for your customers.
• Understand the life cycle of the printed product and cost impact at each stage.
• Train your team on “solution sales”.
• Invest in equipment and innovation!

We wish you continued success!

Bob Dale and Gord Griffiths are partners in Connecting for Results Inc. Their focus is to facilitate mergers and acquisitions that maximize results for all parties, and provide recruitment and consulting services. Both Bob and Gord have many years of experience, with Gord holding positions as the President of Quebecor Canada, and COO of Cenveo. Bob has over 15 years’ experience offering management consulting services, transition execution and support. He was a part-time faculty member of Ryerson University. Over the past 14 years, he was employed by RBC as a specialist to lead national and international efforts for effective print management. They can be contacted at info@connectingforresults.com or by visiting https://connectingforresults.com.

This article was originally published in the September 2020 issue of PrintAction. 

With that in mind, I want to share some of the strategies we’ve seen being used by our franchise owners and other independent signs businesses across the country. Here are four ways signs and graphics businesses can keep driving recovery in Canada:

Be a goodwill partner with your local business community

It’s no secret that the economic impact of COVID-19 has been vast. Businesses are struggling to pay bills and employees. But even in the middle of these challenges, a local business community survives and thrives together. It might make sense to donate expertise, products or services as a gesture of goodwill to the broader community as part of your recovery readiness. You may be able to leverage tactics that are specific to your local market that neighbouring businesses are finding useful. This kind of giveback shows the values of your business, and it’s a gesture of goodwill that your community will remember long after the current crisis is over.

Prioritize current customers with expert guidance

The reality is that some of your best customers may be unable to buy right now or spend what they typically would. Use this time to strengthen your ties by offering sound advice. Business relationships are built on trust, dependability and fairness. The payout may come a little later than you would like, but it is more likely to manifest in long-term loyalty. The makeup of many businesses’ marketing and allocation of marketing dollars is likely to evolve in the coming months. Be a resource that can adjust, and you will maintain the value you can provide.

Seek out local partnerships

A network of like-minded professionals is invaluable during times of crisis. Many independent signs and graphics companies felt isolated during the beginning of the pandemic and may still feel the strain of going it alone. Our franchise owners have a network to depend on, and independent owners can create their own support systems, made up of professionals in the visual arts as well as other small business owners. Sharing best practices, troubleshooting issues, figuring out together how to best access government resources – these are just a few ways signs businesses can use local partnerships to continue powering one another’s economic recovery. Now is the time to come together as an industry, so we can all thrive together.

Look to the future

There may never be a true “return to normal” in how we conduct business face-to-face. Now is the time to make sure the platforms and technologies you use make doing business with your company as easy – and contact-less – as possible. Do you offer online ordering? There is no time like the present to make your business more valuable by removing barriers to working with you. Diversifying your services to enable cross-selling, like adding promotional or branded visual products, will also allow you to deliver more solutions to your existing and prospective clients.

These are just a few strategies we’ve seen our franchise owners employing during the last several months. There are many other ways for your signs and graphics business to support local businesses that are specific to your community. Together, our industry can be a driver of economic recovery. As the saying goes (and it remains true no matter how many times we hear it): We’re all in this together.

Mike Cline is Vice President of Franchise Development at Alliance Franchise Brands. He works with independent print and sign businesses interested in accessing the many benefits of franchise network participation. He can be contacted by phone at 800-445-5172 or by email at mikec@alliancefranchisebrands.com.

I’m a designer and design strategist. Much of the media I work with is packaging and my clients are typically marketing leaders and brand managers for big brands stocked in retail outlets such as supermarkets. Over the past few years I have become convinced of the benefits of digital print in delivering a more creative and agile approach to how marketeers use the media of packaging. I’ve worked with HP quite a bit, creatively experimenting with their digital print capability and talking to their circle of print suppliers and the brands that use them.

Getting busy people on board to ‘try something new’ can be hard work. These aren’t entrepreneurs, they are business professionals trying to meet their targets efficiently and effectively and they are not prone to moving away from tried and tested approaches.

So it’s not always an easy ‘sell’ – but here are some common-sense suggestions based on my own experience of trying to persuade my clients to have a go, to be bold, to try something new. Hopefully the things I have observed can act as general principles for anyone trying to get their clients to try something new and to then reap the benefits. It’s not the whole story – being a great business salesman comes down to many factors and skills (many of which I lack) but here’s how I try to make things happen.

Find the right opportunities

The ‘new thing’ you have to offer won’t be for everybody. The majority of customers will be happier as followers of a proven approach than as innovators of something less tried and tested. So the first task is to find amongst your contacts those people who like to feel brave and who get inspired by trying something different. The ideal candidate is someone young enough to want to make their reputation, but senior enough to make their own decisions! They also need to be passionate about what they are doing – because they genuinely want to make it better, not just more efficient.

Having found this rare person, you now need to identify and understand two things about their professional working lives. What is it that keeps them awake at night, and what is it that would make them jump excitedly out of bed? Once you understand their big ‘problem’ and their big ‘I wonder’ questions, you can then figure out if the innovation you are championing can be overlaid onto these things as a potentially smart solution. The principle is simple – ask the right questions of the right people and listen to the answers – look for the ‘win-win’.

One other thing – you need to be a passionate, informed and inspiring spirit yourself. You won’t convince others if you are not convinced yourself!

Lead by example

As Henry Ford put it “You can’t build a reputation on what you propose to do.” In order to ignite interest you will need to show successful applications of the tech you are championing. The reality is that getting to these first concrete examples often comes from the first work being ‘given away’ to prove its worth. In blunt terms you have to put some skin in the game – on your own time and from your own energy. The Smirnoff work I developed with HP and the Yarza Twins came from an email I sent the Diageo design team headlined ‘Free Lunch?’

I simply asked them to lend me a brand on which I could prove the equipment’s capabilities. I was asking for a chance for us to prove ourselves. Happily, they obliged.

Explain the value

Silas Amos

“We can deliver better, faster and cheaper, but can only do any two of these at a time” is a classic way of explaining ones offer to clients. But more and more they are demanding “all three please.”

The value the innovation can bring needs to hit several targets in order for your client to become truly interested in it. In cost and speed it should be competitive or provide an affordable alternative to typical processes in the right context. In output it should produce something of equal or greater quality to typical alternatives. In application terms it should enable the client to do something they could not do before.

This is the key factor: How can you creatively ‘up the game’ with the final product. Will people pay more for it? Love it and buy more of it? Notice it (when before they were blind to it)? Will it make your clients competition look average by comparison?

If you can offer comparative evidence against these basic points you have a good position to then look at how to tailor your pitch to your client.

Reduce the risk

Only the reckless would bet their career and core business or brand on an untested new approach. There are two magic words that can unlock the proposed project: ‘Pilot scheme’. Start small, think of the first steps as a low risk experiment – if it fails, the only thing it has really cost is some time and energy. But if it works, the process can be reviewed, streamlined and made fit for larger and larger projects. Build trust, learn on the job, and there’s a good chance more work will develop organically from the process.

Join forces

Be it with competition amongst creative agencies or amongst solution-providers in the print world, we are all used to a ‘dog-eats-dog’ approach to business. But with innovation, if you only stick to selling the one thing that you alone can do, there’s a chance you will become disconnected from your client’s bigger challenges and processes, especially when looking forward. So, if you can learn to play ball with other key suppliers or teams you will more likely get to bigger and bolder solutions that can be truly game changing.

My analogy is the stained-glass window – arguably the world’s first example of mass communication. Engineers figured out how to put big holes in lead bearing walls using flying buttresses. Craftsmen figured out how to colour glass and work it into images. And the ‘marketing department’ had a whole story to tell about ‘I am the light’. Put them all together and the Sunday worshippers got to see the world of their faith in a whole new way.

When I wanted to promote HP’s SmartStream software that underpins their digital printing solutions, I would have got nowhere without recruiting the talents of a great artist, Sir Peter Blake, and a great printer, F E Burman, to help connect the dots. Together with some HP Indigo software developers we pushed the tech and opened up a conversation about the cultural relevance of the technology. Connect the dots with the help of others and you can truly change the business we work in.

In conclusion, I’d observe that there’s really nothing new under the sun. And success in promoting any radical leap in technology relies on very simple human values. Have passion, be positive, embrace new technologies, be open for partnerships and teamwork and care about genuinely resolving your client’s challenges. That way you’ll be well set to pick up new business whilst also having some fun along the way.

And last but not least – do visit drupa 2021 in Düsseldorf as that’ll be the place where many innovations can be seen and touched.

Editor’s note: This article is part of the drupa 2021 article series: Essentials of Print No. 11 / June 2020.

TCP Reliable, a parent company serving the life science and industrial markets, has undergone a corporate rebranding and is now officially Integreon Global.

In a Feb. 19 statement, Integron Global said that the rebranding encompasses not only a new name, but a revamped website and reimagined logo design applying to its subsidiary companies, further promoting organizational synergy.

Taking place 30 years after TCP Reliable was founded, the company is being rebranded to better communicate the unique, integrated solutions and services offered by the subsidiary companies of Integreon Global: Cryopak, DDL, LaunchWorks, and NexKemia. Together, the four companies collaborate to ensure product integrity and protection through innovative materials, testing services, packaging and monitoring solutions, and contract manufacturing.

“The rebranding effort showcases our commitment to delivering tailored end-to-end solutions that meet each customer’s unique set of challenges,” said Maurice Barakat, CEO of Integreon Global. “Not only are we promoting internal collaboration, but also the partnering of Integreon specialists with our clients. This is key to maintaining product integrity throughout manufacturing and distribution.”

The four companies that make up the pillars of Integreon Global offer a range of products and solutions: Launchworks is a premier contract development and manufacturing organization; Cryopak designs and develops cold chain packaging and temperature monitoring devices; DDL provides packaging, product and material testing services; and NexKemia manufactures expandable polystyrene (EPS) resin. Each company in the Integreon brand is unique, and under the combined strength of this new image will be “well-positioned for additional growth,” the statement added.

In today’s omnichannel environment, a strategic direct marketing approach is essential for engaging customers and winning their loyalty. Here are 17 direct marketing tactics that will help drive consumers into your store.

• Personalize your brand. While the deal may be the driver, a personalized experience closes the deal. Present images of store managers, techs, owners and floor personnel in your messaging. Online and offline, consumers still count on a human touch.
• Customize your copy. It’s not enough to sprinkle a consumer’s name on a website or form. That feels generic in today’s world. Pull in geographic detail, locational key words, calendar events, and local and provincial imagery so recipients know the message was truly meant for them.
• Show you can relate. Your buyer responds to visual cues as well as text, so leverage what you know to control the offer and how it is laid out. A message with vivid, relevant product imagery in a familiar context with accurate store mapping is portable across all digital media and mail.
• Curate your solution. You learn about a customer’s priorities based on their web searches, clicks, inquiries, redemptions, purchases and past responses. So, present collections that quickly attract their eyes and forget the stuff they won’t bother to view.
• Deliver value. Content marketing is the currency of the blogosphere, but long before that, direct mail, catalogues and newsletters shared editorial to engage readers. People still crave information, so deliver content that has value. Empower your customer with knowledge.
• Add meaning. Inspire your buyer with a greater purpose. Your message should answer these questions: How does this product/brand work? How will it make me better? How can it solve my problems? How will it make my life easier, better, more interesting, more convenient, etc.?
• Make it a game. Most consumers will play a game if there is a reward. Quizzes, contests, games, puzzles and trivia spark interaction. Games educate (whether online or offline) and can be a tool for gathering additional data.
• Cash in with coupons. The traditional static coupon litters every grocery bulletin board and tells a marketer little upon redemption. But customized variable-coded, feature-rich coupons drive consumers to websites and into stores. PURLs and codes help track buyer activity online and offline.
• Capture attention with QR codes. Eliminate the distracting leap smartphone users make from mail piece to laptop. QR codes on handhelds are tickets for admission to brick-and-mortar events.
• Loyalty programs unlock information. These are really trading platforms where consumers receive value in exchange for personal information. If you don’t have one yet, get started. Cards and mobile apps are a vehicle for entry.
• Pixel tracking works. Retarget buyers who abandon carts and browsers who don’t authenticate. Combining a visitor’s IP address with GPS technology, you can invite a prospect to your local store and follow up with direct mail.
• Manage trigger programs. Manage your messaging to acknowledge, thank, review and upsell purchases. Remember birthdays. But beyond that, be careful how often and why you reach out to customers. Your goal is to optimize store visits without fatiguing the reader.
• Integrate mail and email to build traffic. Intelligent mail barcoding can alert you about the peak time to send complementary email and post-display ads. Informed delivery enables URL activation of physical mail offers before they hit the mailbox.
• Invest in targeting analytics. In addition to traditional RFMs, employ multivariate response modeling to identify high-propensity buyers and prospects.
• Promote your “click and collect” capability. Use digital mapping, handheld tickets and parking passes for order pickup.
• Deliver the best creative. Website designers, display ad artists, direct mail and email writers all have category-exclusive skills. Integrate carefully, with clear goals and branding guardrails. Prepare for their advice and diverse approaches.
• Use your store to energize repeat visits. Educate floor staff about your direct marketing promotions so every customer who enters is greeted with the same smiling face and welcoming story.

Capitalize on every “store”
Brick, mortar and digital are essential components in the most successful customer journey. While the ultimate goal has never changed, the way we reach customers has evolved in our omnichannel environment. Traditional media like direct mail needs to be partnered with email, SMS, online displays and more to inspire orders and visits. We have more access to customer data than ever before, and service providers can leverage this information to connect more deeply with consumers who are looking for an engaging experience.

Kevin Nuernberger is Director Business Development for RRD Marketing Solutions, helping clients improve their direct marketing ROI with high-performance direct mail strategies. This post was originally published on https://thoughts.rrd.com/blog and is reprinted with permission.

This feature was originally published in the January/February 2020 issue of PrintAction, now available online.

Five key trends that will be pivotal to marketers in 2020, according to RRD, are:

Trend #1: From omnichannel to optichannel
For years, marketers have been working to consider every channel in order to be successful. While this may have been realistic a decade ago, the vast number of channels make it ineffective to activate campaigns across all these channels and mediums. In 2020, marketers will take a step back and adopt a more holistic approach, essentially ditching the omnichannel mindset in lieu of “optichannel,” which means making strategic decisions based on the brand promise, customer expectations, personal preferences, and the anticipated return on investment.

Trend #2: The pop-up comeback
In an age where major retailers like Toys “R” Us and Barneys New York are shutting their stores, these same brands are also making a return via the pop-up. These retailers are now hosting pop-up events aimed at creating unique and memorable consumer experiences. The goal of a retail pop-up store is to build brand interactions that make a lasting impression with customers. In 2020, marketers need to view experiences as the new form of brand promotion and engage consumers through immersive activations.

Trend #3: Voice marketing finds its voice
While voice search and voice assistants were novel just a few years ago, they are on the cusp of becoming a household item. In fact, it’s expected that the base of installed smart speakers will reach 225 million units by 2020 and 30% of all web searches will be done without a screen. For marketers to get ahead in 2020, they need to define how voice marketing should be integrated into their overall marketing strategy.

Trend #4: The human element matters
Recent research into Instagram marketing shows that influencer-sponsored posts have grown by more than 150 percent in the past year. This is not surprising as 70 percent of U.S. consumers that follow influencers on social media platforms say they trust influencer opinions as much or more than their real-world friends. The key takeaway is that consumers trust hearing from real people, whether they are online influencers or friends and family, potentially more than hearing from a brand directly. To win and keep customer loyalty, marketers need to make a strategic investment with influencers who embody their company values and have an authentic relationship with their followers.

Trend #5: First impressions count more than ever
Whether a consumer buys a product at the store or gets it shipped directly, the first impression counts, sometimes just as much as the product itself. In-store, consumers are presented with a plethora of choices that can get overwhelming. A product’s appearance can make a difference in the final decision. At the same time, at home, the first interaction with a new purchase is actually the box — not the product. According to a national study conducted by the Paper and Packaging Board and IPSOS, seven in 10 consumers agree that packaging can influence purchasing decisions. In 2020, the most successful brands will use clever, trendy and sustainable packaging to attract new buyers and create loyal customers.

“New technology and channels have made marketing and customer communications more complex in recent years,” said Dan Knotts, President and CEO of RRD. “Consumers are being bombarded with advertisements and product choices virtually everywhere. The market is so saturated that standing out as a brand may feel like mission impossible at times. The recipe for success in 2020 is not quite so complex. Brands should focus on building genuine connections and memorable experiences by strategically leveraging physical and digital channels.”

“The animated, playful designs include one for California that includes images of surfboards and redwood trees. New York’s shows the Brooklyn Bridge and the Illinois bottle includes an illustration of Chicago’s public art sculpture known as the Bean,” AdAge reports in its article, Mtn Dew made 50 bottle designs, one for each state.

The ambitious campaign was supported by more than 450 unique creative assets, including 50 separate 15-second videos, in-store displays, social media ads, augmented/virtual reality experiences and more, customized for each state, as well as a national television ad from parent company PepsiCo. Mountain Dew also offered consumers a US$100 prepaid gift card to those who collected all 50 limited-edition bottles.

Agencies on the campaign include BBDO New York, which handled the TV and digital creative; and Motive, which oversaw label design and static creative, AdAge reports.

However as the beverage brand rolled out the campaign, consumers soon spotted a geography error in the creative assets — Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was incorrectly coloured in the same green and white pattern as the state of Wisconsin in a map of the United States. Unfortunately, the illustration had already begun appearing in the national commercial spot and in the introduction of each state-specific ad. About a month into the campaign, the error was called out publicly by the Upper Peninsula’s official Twitter handle, urging Mountain Dew to “fix this.” The Upper Peninsula tweeted, “@MountainDew do you want to gain a bunch of fans? I triple dog dare you to come out with an Upper Peninsula edition for your #DEWnited [campaign].”

“We saw that and immediately thought, ‘We have to fix this.’ We dishonoured the people of this place,” Nicole Portwood, VP Marketing for Mountain Dew, said in an interview with Adweek.

Mountain Dew responded swiftly and tweeted back, asking Yoopers (residents of the Upper Peninsula) to send in design ideas for a limited-edition bottle: “Hey, Upper Peninsula: we hear you, and we’re sorry for misplacing you on our #DEWnited map. Give us a chance to right our wrong. Help us fill this special-edition label by telling us all of the things you love about the Upper Peninsula (note to self: located in MICHIGAN).”

The brand was flooded with thousands of comments and suggestions about how the label should look, Portwood told Adweek, and soon there were several drafts for a bottle design.

“As luck would have it, the man who ran the Upper Peninsula handle, Bugsy Sailor, also has a background in graphic design and helped them arrive at a final iteration. Mountain Dew then worked with its bottlers in the region to print the labels and ultimately produce 906 bottles. Portwood estimates the whole process, from concept to finished product, took about a month,” writes Erik Oster in the Adweek article, How Mountain Dew turned a geography error into a source of love for the brand. Because the labels weren’t commercialized, Mountain Dew was able to expedite the creation and production of the specially-created bottles, and used them as giveaway prizes at the Upper Peninsula State Fair within weeks of the Twitter exchange.

“Behind brands are groups of people. We are fallible, we bring heart and energy to our work and if you have the right type of [moral] compass, I believe that shows to our fans,” continued Portwood, in her interview with Adweek. “It’s hard to put in an ROI model, but if you couple that kind of true north-guided behaviour with other table-stakes marketing fundamentals, I believe it has an amplification effect that shows its value well-beyond sales goals and things like that.”

In addition to delivering top-notch products and services, a business must create strong brand identity and positive customers experiences that resonate with audiences. In this case, Mountain Dew addressed the error promptly – turning “oops into opportunity,” as creative agency Motive puts it – and ultimately created an opportunity to build deeper bonds with existing consumers and expand its consumer base within the Upper Peninsula community. 

This column was originally published in the October 2019 issue of PrintAction, now available online.

To recap, the point of experiential marketing is to encourage your customers to become active participants in your brand. You can do this by creating an activity for your clients — or one you do with them — that is fun or unexpected, and generates a lasting impression.

No, that doesn’t mean that you’re inviting them to your warehouse to pick orders or for tours of your office. But it does mean building memorable experiences that get people talking and ultimately increase their love for your brand.

Sound difficult? It’s not — and you’re probably already doing things that qualify as engagement marketing even if you’re not calling it by its name(s).

What is a little bit harder, though, is getting engagement marketing right. And that’s where today’s post comes in. We’ve got a few good tips for leveling up your engagement marketing that you can work on right away. Read on.

How you might currently be engaging
As we mentioned, engagement marketing comes in many different shapes and formats. It can offer a fully online experience, like a video game or even a photo submission contest, or it can be totally offline (or maybe a mixture of both, if you want to get really fancy).

If you have a blog or social media accounts that you actively moderate to have direct conversations with customers and fans, you’re doing online engagement marketing. And, if you have wrapped vehicles or create standout tradeshow booths, you’re already an offline engagement marketer. But how are you using these tools?

Better ways to engage
The key is to make your current resources really work for you to delight customers and clients while you also brainstorm new and novel experiences.

Maybe you do like Google in our example from that earlier article and sell cupcakes from your branded trucks, or maybe you turn your tradeshow booth into a lounge where show attendees can hang out and try your products. (Note: these ideas need to make sense for your brand and what you do — if the experience is disconnected from your services or items that you sell, it may not be memorable.)

Invite audience participation
The Wikipedia article on engagement marketing — which is not particularly engaging reading, by the way — does offer some great examples of successful campaigns that get audiences involved. The cited experiences are diverse. There’s Jones Soda’s practice of soliciting user photos that it prints on custom orders — or, if the image is compelling enough — gets put on bottle labels in regular production, which has fans clamoring to submit their pictures.

And then there’s the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade — perhaps one of the more historic examples of experiential marketing.

The good news is that you don’t have to conduct a parade through New York City (or even your hometown) to get great audience engagement. It may be as simple as soliciting user-generated content (UGC) on social media for the chance to win branded gear or exclusive access to something valuable your company provides.

Be funny or clever
This can fall flat if humour is not part of your usual brand identity, so you need to understand your image a little bit first. How do you do this? Put yourself in your customers’ shoes (or, better yet…take a survey of how they feel about your business) to learn more about how your brand comes across to those who have interacted with it in the past.

You don’t have to go all out comedic (and, say, “ambush” your rival’s cupcake truck like Zappos) — you can just add some lightheartedness to your tone on social media or invite your fans to submit funny videos for the chance to win a prize.

Consider working with a friend
Take the opportunity to get friendly with a complementary business in your industry — maybe a supplier or even a good-natured rival — to cooperatively run a campaign that benefits you both. Online retailers are generally good at this kind of marketing, but it’s more than just putting your brands’ logos in a few emails or sharing each other’s social media posts once in a while.

Collaborating more deeply can yield (literally) record-breaking results — and sell a lot of products for everyone involved. See Red Bull & GoPro’s partnership for the 2012 Stratos jump event that took place in 2012. Both companies got a lot of traction out of the event over several years, and the advertising world still talks about it now.

Make it POP
So, you don’t have the marketing budget of a giant multi-national corporation to afford sending a person into space in the name of advertising. Admittedly, that’s pretty rare. What you likely can justify spending ad dollars on, though, is point of purchase (POP) displays.

These are often interactive — check out a few of the examples in our previous post on some of our favourite POP displays — and can be considered effective experiential marketing tactics when they successfully engage customers with a branded experience.

Engagement marketing at its best can create a long-lasting impression in your customers’ minds. But these experiences don’t just happen. At the same time, you don’t need limitless budgets to create a standout campaign or event — you simply need some support from the pros.

This article was written by The H&H Group.

Liberty Mutual recently ran a scented print campaign to promote auto insurance to those in the market to buy a vehicle. The bright yellow ad, which invited readers to open a flap for a whiff of that ‘new-car smell,’ ran in the April 28 issue of the Chicago Sun-Times and reads: “If you’re thinking about a new car, think about Liberty Mutual.”

The idea came from research suggesting that most car buyers wait until making a purchase to think about getting a car insurance quote, according to San Francisco ad agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners, who worked with the insurance company on the campaign. Because smells are closely connected to memory formation, associating the scent of a new car to the insurance ad is expected to prompt a subconscious response.

“To engage with a consumer during this specific moment where they’re making a decision about their insurance, we used a print ad that would give people a Pavlovian response to catch car buyers at the moment that matters most,” the agency explained.

The effort comes as businesses turn increasingly experimental with different nose-catching strategies, seeking to deliver something unexpected, while staying on brand. Today’s technology allows for more creative opportunities to marry the sense of smell with printed media, namely through scented papers or inks.

“The true power of olfactory branding (also known as scent branding) is in its unique ability to form immediate, powerful, and differentiated emotional connections with customers, particularly within a category of functionally similar offerings,” write Laurence Minsky, Colleen Fahey and Caroline Fabrigas in the Harvard Business Review article, Inside the invisible but influential world of scent branding. “That’s because a unique scent can spark the memory of the associated products or events, even for an incident dating back to one’s childhood. And olfactory recall can extend to 10,000 different odours, if not more.”

The holidays are a popular time for brands to get unconventional. For the 2018 festive season, Coca-Cola turned the Oxford Circus Underground station in London, U.K., cinnamon-scented to remind consumers of the holidays, a unique tactic in its promotion of a new limited-edition cinnamon drink flavour. Last year, breakfast sausage brand Jimmy Dean hosted a recipe gift exchange for free holiday swag. After sharing their favourite recipe that features a Jimmy Dean product, customers could choose from various gifts, including sausage-scented gift wrap, as a thank-you for their participation. The gift wrap was so popular, it went out of stock a few weeks into the promotion.

Several years ago, McCain Foods launched its first-ever ‘smell-vertising’ campaign. Ten bus stations in the U.K. were outfitted with large advertisements for McCain Ready Baked Jackets, a frozen baked-potato product that can be consumed after microwaving. Each billboard included a fibreglass potato sculpture and a button that once pushed, would release the tantalizing smell of baked potatoes throughout the bus shelter.

The Gensler Brand Engagement Study reports 94 percent of respondents said they would be highly likely to recommend a brand they were emotionally engaged with.

“Scents don’t only change how people feel, they even give a powerful sway to what they think and how they process information. A pleasant smell appears to turn on a switch in your brain that shifts your focus to the positive aspects of your environment and blinds [you] from the negative. The entire experience changes,” writes Tom van Bommel in his article, The definitive guide to scent marketing.

For more than three decades, McCormick & Company, a manufacturer of spices, seasoning mixes and condiments, has added extra “spice” to its annual reports by incorporating a McCormick product into the printed pages – selecting flavours such as ginger, garam masala, Chinese five spice, even a fusion of blackberry and clove – to create a captivating reader experience.

As Travis Montaque, Founder and CEO of Emogi, explains in the Adweek article, Three steps to build a lasting emotional connection with customers: “To thrive in today’s marketing landscape, it is no longer enough for brands to simply communicate what their products and services provide; brands must cultivate an emotional connection with their consumers that will ensure continued loyalty. Brands that have not established this sort of bond are bound to be lost in the sea of competition.”

This column was originally published in the June 2019 issue of PrintAction, now available online.

What Is variable data printing?
Variable data printing (VDP) is a data-driven form of digital printing which allows a variety of elements to be changed from piece to piece. This gives marketers the unique ability to produce a single design, yet change names, addresses, graphics, colours, photos, artwork, tracking numbers, and more as each piece is printed.

Like Microsoft Word’s mail merge function on steroids, variable data printing can produce hundreds or even thousands of completely unique pieces for a truly customized marketing campaign.

Variable data printing uses data from a database to work its magic. It’s a great way to make use of your existing customer information to craft unique and personalized marketing campaigns for a select audience.

Get higher response rates with variable data printing
Since variable data printing allows you to personalize specific details of each and every printed piece, you can craft messaging that strongly resonates with prospects and customers. This personalized approach often translates to more customer engagement and better ROI (return on investment).

In fact, a recent report revealed that “59 percent of shoppers who have experienced personalization believe it has a noticeable influence on purchasing.” According to the 2018 Personalization Pulse Check, “91 percent of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who recognize, remember, and provide relevant offers and recommendations.”

Both PODI Reports and the DMA report that the average response rate for personalized marketing pieces is over 300 percent higher than the response rate for non-personalized mail pieces.

Variable data printing can also be combined with other marketing platforms including landing pages, email marketing, or QR codes, further boosting response rates and customer confidence.

How much customization can you do?
The amount of customization you use will depend largely on the available information you have in your database, your printing service, and your available budget. Today’s digital printing technology provides a lot of flexibility for just about any scenario you can imagine. Generally, though, there are basically three ways to implement a variable data printing strategy.

1. Basic variable printing
The most common way to get started with variable data printing is to change a simple field, such as the salutation, person’s name or address information on each unique piece. This allows you to address each potential customer individually, similar to using mail merge in Microsoft Word.

2. Versioning
This type of variable data printing creates different levels of customization based on different markets. For example, you might use one type of text or photo for one set of addresses in the database, and different text and images for another.

3. Full variable printing
Full variable data printing involves customizing your message for each individual address you mail to. This begins by creating a basic design that defines static and variable fields for each piece to be printed. The static elements will appear the same on each piece, while the variable fields will be filled with text or images based on a set of rules that you define based on information contained in your database. This is by far the most flexible approach and the one that drives the best results, allowing you tailor your message to each customer individually.

Examples of variable data printing
To give you an idea just how powerful personalization can be, here are some concrete examples of how you might implement variable data printing for your business.

• Engage prospective students
Using data collected from thousands of prospective college students, a university could tailor their next direct mail campaign to specific student interests. For example, a section of each mailer could contain a specific color scheme, photo, and message tailored to one of several course curricula. Prospective students interested in science or technology would get one version of the mailer, while the mailer could look completely different for prospective law students, medical students, or English majors. Other parts of the mailer would remain the same for each segment, containing the university logo, address, and contact information.

• Upsell to existing customers
A car dealership could use existing customer purchase data to create a purchase incentive for the latest car models. Variable data printing makes it easy to send a mailer with the exact car the customer purchased, along with details about the latest model, and a generous dealer incentive. This same strategy could be used for any number of consumer purchases. The key is providing personalized information that shows you understand your customer.

• Increase non-profit donations
Using data from current donors, non-profit organizations could use variable data printing to tailor a unique mailer that speaks to the donor directly. For example, you could give thanks for their donation to cause X, and discuss the progress that has been made to that cause, while soliciting additional money to meet a year-end goal. You might also use this data to emphasize a specific project that closely matches the specific interests of the donor.

• Boost response for reminders
Many businesses could improve the response rates of their reminder cards by using personalization. For car maintenance, for example, including a picture of the customer’s car, along with the service reminder could boost appointments. Doctors and dentists could use personalized mailers to remind clients to schedule their next visit.

• Create personalized coupons and offers
Hotels and entertainment venues could personalize offers based on the amount of money that customers have spent in the past, reserving the largest incentives for their best customers. Variable data printing enables you to create a generalized offer and substitute a customized coupon for customers at a pre-determined level of sales.

As you can see, variable data printing can be a valuable asset in your print marketing tool box, providing a more targeted and personalized approach that boosts response and increases the ROI of your print campaigns. We encourage you to think about the creative ways you might implement your next postcard, mailer, or special offer.

This article was written by The H&H Group.

“BuzzFeed, a company that was born on the Internet and social media, is testing a new technology called print and unveiling a one-time, special edition BuzzFeed Newspaper, showcasing the latest news stories and favourite BuzzFeed content in an easy to consume mobile format. Fans all across New York will be able to check out the must-read stories without ever needing Wi-Fi,” it playfully announced.

With content from various sections across the company, the paper’s cover story delves into the whirlwind obsession over the Momo Challenge, a viral hoax that first came to light last July and recently resurfaced in Canada in February. Also featured in the 12-page newspaper are a New York City knowledge page, instructions for cooking cheap and expensive steaks, and a printed gif of Glenn Close at the Oscars, detailing her reaction frame-by-frame to Billy Porter’s red carpet outfit. “Confident @BuzzFeed is the first outlet to print a gif in a newspaper, we are rocket scientists,” Tom Namako, Head of Breaking News at BuzzFeed News, tweeted.

“It’s a print edition of some of the best stuff we’ve done over the last few weeks with a great cover story on a classic Internet phenomenon by Katie Notopoulos, which is that in the course of a week, Momo went from this kind of terrifying Internet figure to a debunked hoax, to the subject of people making fan art and falling in love with her,” BuzzFeed Editor-in-chief Ben Smith explained, as he doled out copies of the one-off paper at Union Square. “It’s kind of an attempt to do the Internet in print, in fact.”

The back page is devoted to advertising, and BuzzFeed says it will track the advertising coupon codes to see how well the newspaper performed.

At a time when brands are cutting back on their print components or shuttering them completely, why are others – particularly those born and bred online – moving into the print realm? In recent years, Airbnb, Dollar Shave Club and Net-a-Porter, among others, have all launched their own print publications. Airbnb and Hearst Magazines in May 2017 launched Airbnb Magazine, which echoes the adventurous spirit of Airbnb and celebrates the “experiences made possible when we are open with each other and curious to explore the world — and ourselves.” Last summer, Facebook quietly introduced Grow, a quarterly print magazine in the U.K., for business leaders and executives. The print product is now being distributed for free in select airport and train business lounges.

A matter of trust, a November 2017 study by media buyer MediaCom and Magnetic, a marketing agency for consumer media, finds magazine brands are more trusted than social media brands: 70 percent of magazine readers trust magazines, but only 30 percent of social media users trust social media. For digital natives under the age of 35, the split is 62 percent and 35 percent, respectively.

“Building brand trust is in large part down to product and service experience; however, media can play a role in delivering trustworthiness, or a perception of trust,” MediaCom and Magnetic say. “There is a ‘brand rub effect,’ trust in a magazine brand translates into perceptions of trustworthiness for brands who use this environment. Across a basket of campaign effectiveness studies and a range of trust-based metrics, we saw an average percentage KPI uplift of between 64 percent and 94 percent per brand.”

The study used three different ways to measure trust: a single direct question, factor analysis to capture the nuances of trust, and implicitly to account for subconscious perceptions.

“There’s been a bit of a wake-up call in the last 18 months in terms of people’s disbelief around fake news and their worries that what they’re being sent and sold and reading is not real,” Magnetic CEO Sue Todd said in a July 2018 interview with The Drum. “People’s response to that is to be a bit more diligent, and that means they’re looking towards the most trusted channels.

“The thinking is: if there are challenges around the trust in our content and our brand, then a magazine, a printed magazine, is a good way for us to change that conversation and build more trust.”

In what often seems like an increasingly digital-centric world, it’s clear that multi-channel campaigns that leverage the innate trust of print with the accessibility of digital will be the most effective way to engage with today’s audiences.

This editorial was originally published in the April 2019 issue of PrintAction, now available online.

In collaboration with HP, SA Litho, a Cape Town-based label producer, transformed the bottles into unique pieces using an HP Indigo WS6800 press with HP SmartStream Mosaic variable design technology, leveraging two seed patterns in a variable design software algorithm. In less than a week, SA Litho completed the printing of the 400,000 labels, HP explains, which was produced on a metallic substrate using ElectroInk CMYK and white.

“Individualizing Amarula bottles is a powerful way to reinforce the message that every elephant is an individual with a unique personality,” said Saramien Dekker, Global Marketing Manager for Amarula. “This campaign is about creating a connection between humans and elephants, and becoming actively involved in raising awareness and saving our elephants.”

In partnership with conservation group WildlifeDirect, Amarula recently launched its latest campaign initiative, ‘Don’t Let Them Disappear,’ in countries around the world, including South Africa, the United States, Brazil, Germany and Canada. On August 12, World Elephant Day, a life-sized elephant ice sculpture – consisting of roughly 103 blocks of ice and weighing an estimated 9,344 kilograms – appeared in Toronto’s Distillery District. Over the course of the day the ice sculpture slowly melted in the summer heat, symbolizing the rate at which African elephants are being killed for their ivory.

A week prior to World Elephant Day, the @AmarulaElephant Twitter account and hashtag #AmarulaTrust launched, giving a voice to the elephant ice sculpture so it can share its story and spread the word about the disappearance of its brothers and sisters in Africa in real time, before disappearing itself.

The liqueur company’s wildly popular, global campaign on African elephant preservation and protection is a testament to the brand’s effective marketing tactic, promoted through a mixed media campaign supported by personalized packaging, print and digital communications, and a swift social media strategy.

Branding not only drives consumer sales, it also serves as a powerful company differentiator. A recent Cone/Porter Novelli Purpose study found 77 percent of survey respondents feel a stronger emotional connection to purpose-driven companies over traditional companies, while 78 percent believe companies must do more than “make money” — they need to positively impact society as well.

“In fact, companies that lead with purpose will stand to build deeper bonds with existing consumers, expand the consumer base and enlist those brand advocates to share the brand message,” states the research report.

A July 2018 article published by Kantar TNS, a U.K. research and market information group, looks at how brands can inspire trust in today’s evolving environment with the three i’s framework: Integrity, identification and inclusion.             

“The concept of trust has usually been associated with stasis more than change. It brings up images of age-old, time-tested, large, solid brands and organizations with large and loyal user bases,” Anjali Puri, Global Director, Qualitative Offer and Expertise, at Kantar Insights Division, writes.

She describes the perception of integrity as “doing what you promise, and owning and making up for it when promises are broken.” Identification, she explains, is the ability to have access to one’s real, authentic self; for brands, this means creating a human face to represent the set of values it stands by.

Inclusion, the final ‘i,’ rests on building a sense of kinship, whether by virtue of being family, community, country or even people with shared values, Puri writes. “At its best, inclusion means that the brand cedes some control to its customers, and asks them to invest something of themselves in the brand’s world. We trust our kin because they are an extension of us – we are invested in them.”

As Steve Jobs once famously proclaimed, “A brand is simply trust.” 

This editorial was originally published in the September 2018 issue of PrintAction, now available online.

The higher education market has become increasingly competitive in recent years as schools compete for prospective students. Students, however, aren’t the only audience that schools must reach. Beyond students, the community that comprises a school’s broader support network includes parents, alumni, donors, faculty and staff. Colleges and universities have the unique challenge of developing a brand that appeals to all these audiences and generations.

To compete, universities have adopted market-oriented strategies, such as hiring content agencies and using social media in conjunction with print, which is still the foundation upon which multi-generational marketing is built. Not only is print a tactile and personal experience, but its message to a specific audience also can be amplified through digital media. And in higher education marketing, it’s more powerful than ever.

To find out more about how schools have been harnessing the power of print in reaching new students, their parents and other audiences, we spoke to a few experts in the field, including:

• Karyn Adams, principal and creative director of H·A ThirtyOne, a collegiate branding agency with clients such as Duke University.
• Jessica Corliss, art director and visual identity specialist in the Office of Strategic Communications at the University of Iowa.
• Sean Carroll, director of Printing Services, a full-service printing facility at Vanderbilt University.

The conversation highlighted four takeaways for targeting younger generations through higher education marketing:

1. Your audience is larger than you think

Even if you’re targeting an individual, you’re never speaking to just one person. According to Adams, print speaks to a student’s whole family.

“You’re also trying to talk to their influencers, which can be Gen X or Baby Boomers,” she says. “The younger students are very mobile-invested but they’re also very influenced by parents and family members.”

But no matter the generation, the staying power of print organically increases readership and engagement. And high-impact print, Carroll notes, can be especially appealing to prospective students and alumni.

“Vanderbilt’s recruiting efforts are now worldwide and the quality of prospective students is top notch,” he says. “Our printed pieces are often the first exposure that a student in another country gets from the university. It has to be quality, and it’s important that the piece tell the story of the school and the university mission.” These are critical facts to remember when deciding how to best communicate with your audience.

2. Authenticity is key

Did you know that Millennials and Gen Z are exposed to more ads and branding than any past generation? They’re so bombarded that they’ve become almost immune to marketing of any kind, including higher education marketing. That’s why authenticity is so vital.

“Authenticity comes up a lot,” Corliss says. “Being candid and honest, trying not to stage stuff and instead capture real moments that are happening. That goes over well with the younger audience.”

Adams and her team stay authentic by communicating each school’s uniqueness. “We spend the time getting to know that school and what makes them truly distinctive,” she says. “We spend time on campus … getting to know faculty and students. You learn about their character. That makes it really, really fun.”

Whatever the focus of your message, honest communication goes a long way.

3. Be ready to evolve

In today’s market, the only constant is change. Schools that can adapt are schools that will thrive. Carroll believes that staying on top of industry trends is crucial in higher education marketing. Innovations in printing and paper give marketers even more ways to resonate with their audience, from new folds and finishes to personalized direct mail and camera-captured content. Best of all, it’s measurable.

“There are tons of ways to measure ROI on print,” says Adams, citing PURLs, or personalized URLs, as a favorite. A custom URL lets marketers better understand a piece’s efficacy by tracking visits to the URL.

It’s also wise to follow the practices of other industries. As Corliss explains, “It’s not enough to see what other schools are doing, so we look outside of higher ed. What are the tech and corporate worlds doing with print?” Inspiration, she believes, can come from anywhere.

Carroll agrees, citing his organization’s leap into wide-format printing, where UV and latex technology have become increasingly affordable. “As a leader in a mature industry such as print, it’s so refreshing to see a new world of possibilities,” he says.

Carroll’s homework on the industry has paid off with the wide-format investment. It has allowed his facility to capture some work that has been going on elsewhere. He prints giant 15-foot banners for the university’s real estate operations, and because he can turn those needs quickly, they are coming to him for other traditional printing needs.

4. Know that digital will play a role

When creating a print piece, always consider how digital plays into the higher education marketing experience. An acceptance letter is a great example, as it also has a digital presence.

“When a student gets an acceptance letter in the mail, they don’t just call up their friend and say where they’re going,” says Corliss. “They’re going to take a picture and post it on social media. Then it becomes an alumni engagement opportunity [on social] as well. It’s a full cycle that reaches more than the intended recipient. It connects with multiple generations, and it’s a brand opportunity for us.”

Adams recommends focusing on your end goal when integrating digital. Technology, such as scannable codes or augmented reality, shouldn’t be used just because it’s new. It should have a purpose. “We’re always excited when [institutions] are interested in pushing the boundaries,” she says. “But we always want to look at how it plays into the success of the end project.”

Print clearly leads to high engagement levels. It ends up in people’s hands and in their Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat feeds. Knowing how to leverage print is critical in higher education marketing, from creating pieces that resonate with your target market to integrating digital technology as effectively as possible. That’s the true power of print.

SOURCE Domtar Newsroom

This story originally appeared in Volume 8 of Domtar’s Blueline Magazine. It has been edited for the Domtar Newsroom.

The Cimpress mass customization platform (MCP), combining proprietary software and production technology, will aggregate the printing infrastructure of the Cimpress portfolio of brands. It will also bring the company’s growing portfolio of purchased assets under the same fold, including well-known Web-to-print names like Vistaprint, Drukwerkdeal, AlbelliOpens and Pixartprinting.

The company states the MCP will increase its ability to mass customize personalized and unique physical products in small quantities at an affordable price.

“We have a two decade history during which we have started a major market transformation, yet the next 20 years promise to be even more exciting,” said Robert Keane, President and CEO, Cimpress. “Businesses and consumers are still too often forced to choose between the ease and flexibility of digital communications and a more enduring tangible connection with their audience. We are changing that…”

Founded as Vistaprint by Keane in January 1995, Cimpress and its subsidiaries have focused on redefining the online purchase of printed apparel, marketing products and photo merchandise. The company states its foundation is based on the belief that software and production technology can be harnessed to aggregate enormous numbers of small orders into a high-volume production flow. Cimpress today employs over 400 software and manufacturing engineers and more than 5,300 total employees in 16 countries.

Cimpress claims that every year since 1999 it has invested at least 10 percent of its revenues into technology and development, including $176 million in its last fiscal year. Over the past decade, the company states it has invested over $1.3 billion in technology, development and capital investments.

The company also announced that it has named Don Nelson as COO for Cimpress. In this role, Nelson will be directly responsible for building and advancing the mass customization platform.

“The future of mass customization is very promising for those companies that can combine world class capabilities in software and manufacturing,” stated Nelson. “The key is to have massive scale, yet produce in small quantities. The old paradigm of job-shop production of orders one at a time simply is not able to compete with technology-driven mass customization.”

This inaugural issue of RE:flex centred around applying Colour Innovations’ CIX MetalFX print technology to the digital collages of designer, artist and illustrator Louis Fishauf, who has won more than 60 Gold and Silver ADCC (Advertising & Design Club of Canada) Awards, Gold and Silver National Magazine Awards, and the ADCC Les Usherwood Award.

Fishauf was the co-founder and Creative Director of Reactor Art & Design; served as Editorial Art Director for Chatelaine, City Woman, The City, Saturday Night and Toronto Life magazines; was the Senior Design Consultant for Sympatico Internet Service; and is an Apple Computer Applemaster. He currently serves as a Sessional Instructor at OCAD University.

Over the past few years, Fishauf has been creating digital collages using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and as an early adopter and enthusiastic proponent of digital imaging. Colour Innovations describes his work is an ideal medium for the application of CIX MetalFX technology.

The CIX MetalFX process uses Photoshop channels and proprietary software to combine a gold, silver or bronze base with the 4-colour CMYK process to create thousands of metallic shades and hues from only five colours. The process fit Fishauf’s approach of creating digital collages using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

“I took the opportunity to not only experiment with retrofitting my existing pieces, but also to create a number of new collages and the facing pattern pages, with the metallic ink process specifically in mind,” stated Fishauf. “This required developing a workflow in Adobe Photoshop which attempted to approximate on my computer monitor how the metallic colours would appear in print.”

RE:flex’ inaugural is a large-format 24-page publication printed on Sappi HannoArt gloss cover and text, provided by Ariva, with Metalstar Pantone silver ink, provided by Eckart Effect Pigments.

As part of its rebranding efforts, Hubergroup Canada launched a new Website, Hubergroup.ca, complete with a revamped product selection guide. In addition to inks, hubergroup produces and markets printing varnishes, coatings, dampening solutions, additives and printing auxiliaries.

hubergroup is an international holding group comprised of 40 companies, which amounts to 150 branch offices, sales offices, distributing warehouses and representatives worldwide. It has been a privately held company for over 240 years, with the founding family still involved. More than 3,600 employees contribute to hubergroup’s annual production capacity of over 340,000 tonnes of products.