I kept two pieces of direct mail last week and got so excited that I wanted to share it with the world! As a print industry junkie, I am always on the lookout for mail that is compelling and interesting (guess that skews my observations). Honestly, I don’t keep too much of my mail. I keep the bills and statements, often keep the catalogs, hold onto some coupons, and generally shred indiscriminate direct mail like credit card solicitations.

But last week, I received two pieces of mail that seemed unique and compelling enough to at least hold onto for awhile to research and spend more time with the documents.

The first piece came from VISA. It was an invitation to apply for its Black card. I was already aware of this card and quite frankly I am not a big fan of paying higher fees for concierge services. That said, the mail piece was unique enough to capture my attention. Essentially, it was an oversized replica of the Black credit card with a generic name on the card. Attached was a simple application form. No, my name was not personalized on the card, nor on the rest of the application. However, a separate, cleanly designed note card was personalized. It started off “Dear Mr. Gordon” and was signed in blue ink (pre-printed) by the VISA director of customer experience. All in all, it was a simple but effective direct mail piece. It used very limited personalization, but did so tastefully with impact—in other words, they didn’t overdo it.

Even without a personalized URL, I visited the Visa Black Card website to conduct my own research. The site was as easy to understand as the direct mail piece, indicating that VISA did a good job synchronizing its print and online channels. As a geeky print guy, I would have loved to have seen a personalized URL – maybe next time! 

The second direct mail piece was my first issue of “mine,” a pilot collaboration between Time Inc. and Lexus. I am certain that Time would like to call this a magazine, but the document had only one sponsor, came wrapped with a Lexus ad which stated “We Couldn’t Have Made It Without You,” and was peppered with a few ads highlighting the new Lexus 2010 RX. In my opinion, it was a sophisticated opt-in direct mail campaign that did a good job of combining a high-quality design with relevant content and personalized marketing.

The graphic design throughout the document was exceptional. Honestly it’s much cleaner than Time’s other publications. As most of you know by now, subscribers to “mine.” can choose the content they want to be featured in the publication.

You can select content from specific Time publications like Real Simple, Food & Wine, InStyle, Money, Time, Sports Illustrated, Golf, and Travel+Leisure. The publication structure comprises five content sections with one or two articles per section. A few well-placed ads are scattered throughout the document. In the beginning of the document, the advertising seems generic, but upon closer inspection, it starts out with a regional focus “…the John Hanson Highway can be tricky on your way to Annapolis” and then at the end of the document “…your fellow neighbors in Rockville.” On the last page of the document it gets bolder and more direct, ‘The ALL-NEW 2010 RX. NOW WITH MORE ANDREW GORDON.

If you really are interested in content from Time Magazine (or any of the other affiliated publications), then mine. isn’t going to satisfy your requirements. However, the articles are interesting. The layout is clean and well done (more like what you would expect in a special Life edition). The advertising is effective but not offensive. It gave me enough exposure to Time’s publications that I might be tempted to subscribe to some of the publications. Honestly, it is a pleasant document to read and Lexus owns my time as I sit and enjoy reading. I am really interested to see how Lexus builds on this over the pilot program and what additional personalized messaging they will convey.

What Do These Documents Have in Common?

What does a credit card solicitation and an opt-in custom publication/direct mail document have in common? They are both well thought-out and offer a sense of exclusivity and trust. Both are well designed, which makes them stand out from the pack. Both employ personalization and variable data printing. The use of VDP is subtle, non-offensive, and not gimmicky.

Lessons Learned

We don’t know how successful mine. will be and how Time will use the feedback to develop new products in the future. However, they appear to have developed an effective formula for creating a personalized experience funded by advertisers trying to cut through the clutter, keep the attention of their prospects and develop relationships founded on trust. In addition, mine is an effective way for Time Inc. to cross-sell its own publications.

As for the Visa Black Card, I probably won’t spend the $495 for the privilege of using the card. However, I think VISA has done a good job developing its campaign and I certainly will speak highly of the offering.

Finally, I think there is plenty of room for exceptionally designed printed documents that are well thought-out and use personalization, opt-in mechanisms, and cross media. But great creative and personalization isn’t enough if the targeting and segmenting isn’t tightly done to the profile of those likely to purchase. So, let’s encourage the industry to continue to experiment and innovate, leading to transformational applications that help drive new customer relationships. This is how print will survive in the future.

Now let’s see these same principles applied to newspapers, catalogs, other magazines and publications etc…

Whenever new technology is introduced, adoption typically takes place in predictable phases—first in value-added high-margin niches. Once it gains a foothold, it eventually goes mainstream. Such is the case with digital printing technology. In every segment where digital printing technology has enjoyed success, there is a recurring theme: print producers want technology vendors to show them that
the new product can produce print quality that is equal to or surpasses the incumbent
technology.

The 8X loupe test

This practice, which can be called the “8x loupe” test, maintains that you must be able to replace the dominant, existing technology with something that delivers comparable performance and quality. In most cases, digital print technology vendors have done exactly that and have successfully met print quality criteria.

However, when you look at the offset-to-digital-migration, there are exceptions where digital has successfully ousted offset. Most notably, this has been when digital does not threaten core high volume market segments, where the focus is more on lowering production costs and improving productivity and less on quality or where there is a requirement for higher value personalization.

In these cases, the tradeoff clearly favors digital. Consequently, digital print has tended to thrive in environments and applications that require short runs, versioning, distribute-and-print, and printing of variable data intensive documents like direct mail, personalized collateral and invoices and statements.

However, digital printing technology vendors have thrown down the gauntlet, introducing digital technology that is more mature, delivers better quality and is advancing to the point where it can compete in the higher-volume territories of commercial offset printing.

Digital technology becomes a viable option for the newspaper industry

Given recent advances in digital technology, and changing requirements in the newspaper industry, it’s not surprising that the case is building for printing newspapers digitally. Océ, and other vendors have developed systems that are suitable for this very application. And, while digital printing platforms may not yet meet the productivity and cost requirements for producing large-circulation newspaper runs, there are significant opportunities in printing niche products and local and smaller circulation papers.

Certainly the newspaper industry faces significant challenges—dwindling readership and circulation, high costs, competition from alternate media like cable TV and the Internet. One way to address these issues is considering how digital printing technology can help newspapers generate new business and revenue streams. Digital technology offers unmatched flexibility for printing color on demand, without incurring the costs of additional plates, while enabling all content and advertising to be dynamic. What’s more, with digital technology, run length is less of an issue—print runs of one are as cost-effective as run lengths of 1,000.

Leveraging core strengths to create a new business model

Clearly, a perfect storm is gathering in the newspaper industry. The Internet has wrought havoc on publishers, weakening the underpinnings of the industry. Taking an “if-you-can’t beat-’em, join-em approach” many newspapers have successfully adopted Internet strategies and have been able to capture an increasing share of the Internet advertising spend. However, simply adding a web version of the paper isn’t enough to staunch the bleeding or halt the erosion in circulation and advertising.

Still, there is reason to be optimistic. Core strengths, like local knowledge, rich content, market research, advertising and distribution are significant competitive differentiators that newspapers can use to compete against other forms of media. However, publishers must find new ground: they must simultaneously embrace change and work to leverage these strengths while fundamentally transforming their businesses.

Surviving this period of transition requires developing strategies that move away from the broad-reach circulations dictated by underutilized fixed assets. Instead, newspapers must move towards desirable and relevant content products that deliver significantly higher performance to advertisers (higher margin as well). Obviously, this won’t happen overnight and most publishers won’t concede their broad-reach positions. However, at some time in the future, there will be an inflection point where broad-reach, highly rich and relevant content meets high-performance advertising. This is already occurring with electronic communications and will evolve in print as well.

Innovating new business models and working collaboratively with customers is a key element of the Océ business ethos. Our strengths in high-volume automated print manufacturing, expertise in data-intensive applications, and a fiercely customer-first culture, position us to partner with the newspaper industry to facilitate this transformation. In fact, Océ has been engaged with the newspaper industry all the way back to the turn of this century with the development of the Océ Digital Newspaper Network. Today, we are actively engaged in dialogues with major newspaper publishers to help them overcome the challenges they face, to explore new business models and opportunities by leveraging technology to change the way they do business. We look forward to continuing this path of innovation and transformation as today’s newspapers evolve into tomorrow’s highly personalized information delivery media.

Within our industry, there is an interesting debate about the definition of TransPromo documents. Is it a bill/statement that has promotional messages embedded? Does it have to be promoting a product, service, or just a call to action? How about simply educating the customer and cultivating the relationship? At the other end of the spectrum, there are proponents that have gone as far as to extend TransPromo to primarily promotional documents that are composed based on transactional data and a lot of business logic. Think of these documents as one to one marketing on steroids. So who is right? And how does this impact print volumes? And, why is it relevant?

It is relevant for those that are trying to defend the paper-statement, or the paper direct mail letter, or even the static brochure. The concept of TransPromo shouldn’t be paper centric.. It should be to nurture and cultivate a stronger relationship between supplier and customer, while improving retention rates, keeping the customer actively engaged in the relationship, and hopefully building enough trust that the customer chooses to grow the relationship over time. In this sense, using transaction information helps to engage the customer in a dialogue and improve the lifetime value of the relationship.

So, does this have to occur on a printed statement? Of course not. The best approach to nurturing the supplier/customer relationship is many coordinated and ad hoc touch points, driven by business logic, common sense, and a determination to develop mutual trust and respect. Remember the old adage that every employee is a salesperson? Well, perhaps we should rewrite this and say that every touch point is an opportunity to cultivate the relationship.

Can TransPromo save the paper-statement? Honestly, it doesn’t have to save the paper-statement. But by effectively implementing a comprehensive TransPromo strategy, the supplier gains a strategic strength that will link the print room to the board room. This might not save the paper-statement, but it will certainly drive many new print applications that will be tightly coordinated and integrated into the supplier’s business strategy.

Here is an example for the potential of TransPromo. When was the last time you received a coupon in the mail as part of an affinity program? You probably receive these all the time. I am willing to bet that you don’t always remember to bring them with you to the retail store. Am I right? But, the coupon did, in fact, “get you in the door”. After you pick out the product you want to purchase, and go to the counter and tell them you received a coupon, but didn’t have it with you, what is their answer (yes, I know some do this better than others)? Most likely, they tell you that you can’t use the coupon if you don’t have it with you. Seriously? Their promotion got you to change your behavior and come back to the store when they wanted you to be there and you decided to buy something. This is complete success! They aren’t going to reward you for that? Why not implement a registered coupon that is produced using variable data. It is tagged in their retail system and only you can redeem the coupon. You can do this on the phone, in person, or by mail. It doesn’t matter. The point is that you tell them you received a coupon. They look it up in their retail system and surprise!!! I bet you would be thrilled to have a positive experience where you know that the coupon wasn’t just another indiscriminate offer.

I think the lesson here is that we shouldn’t get fixated on the medium. Customers must come first and strategy should drive how they are engaged and cultivated. If we do it right, print will thrive. If we don’t, then the supplier may falter either way.