A recent InfoTrends study entitled The Evolution of the Cross-Media and Marketing Services Provider reveals 58% of the 280 print service providers surveyed are offering cross-media services. There’s no doubt that the cross-media market is dynamic, growth-oriented, and a major contributor to the future of the printing industry.

The marketing executive is the key decision-maker in cross-media services. These marketers are facing a number of challenges in the transition to cross-channel marketing, from strategy to design and deployment to tracking and measurement. The sheer scope of the cross-channel marketing model, and the new innovations that continue to appear, make it difficult for marketers to keep up.

The opportunity is that marketers are reaching out to their traditional print service provider and agency partners for assistance. During an October 2010 study entitled Capturing the Cross-Media Direct Marketing Opportunity, InfoTrends surveyed more than 500 marketers to find out answers to questions such as: What selection criteria are essential to the marketer? How does that service provider move to the top of the list so they can participate in the more lucrative marketing value chain and the incremental digital print revenue associated with cross-media services?

You can download the full white paper for free here. (Click in the bottom, left corner). Find out the answers to what Marketers are looking for and how YOU can participate in the lucrative cross-media revenue stream!

Welcome to the first FOW on The Digital Nirvana in 2012! I’m sure this year will bring plenty of innovative and fun new folds. This week’s Fab Kaleidoscope Cover Invitation comes from Schmitt’s Press in Baltimore and was created back in 2005 for a fundraising event for Maryland Institute College of Art. What makes this fold so interesting is how the die-cut shape on the front cover interacts with the graphic beneath to create a kaleidoscope effect. This is a superb example of creative designing with simpler folding.

As always, think finishing at the beginning. Enjoy!

I recently read an article from Visible Technologies about six social media threats to be aware of when implementing a social media strategy. It struck me as interesting because social media is so buzz worthy now – it seems to be integral to any marketing plan as more businesses adopt a social media strategy. Social media is great for building brand awareness and interacting directly with customers. However, I’ve rarely thought about the dangers of social media and I found this article to be an appropriate reminder of things too avoid. Below are the six risks from the article:

1.  Lack of social media policy – Every company should have some guidelines in place to outline how employees can and should us social media. Failure to do so could result in poor brand representation or even legal repercussions.
2. Internet security – Employees must always be aware of potential hackers hoping to obtain corporate information, especially when downloading software.
3. Network security – Similar to above, social media users should have up-to-date antivirus protection to prevent unnecessary headaches.
4. Mobile phone apps – These apps can make using social media easier and more convenient. Stick to trustworthy apps or brands as some apps contain malware that could reveal private information or destroy data… scary!
5. Lack of presence to address a crisis – Social media creates a world for people to talk about your brand whether you are promoting that discussion or not. A company needs to be ready to address issues quickly and effectively before a (potential) crisis escalates.
6. Employees – Employees can be your best brand promoters on social media sites. However, they can also represent a risk if they do not fully think through posts and/or if they are not well versed in the company social media policy. Be sure that your employees are educated on this policy and remind them to always post with the well-being of the brand in mind.

While I love social media and think it can be a powerful brand tool, it’s nice to be reminded of the associated risks. It reaffirms the fact that social media needs to follow a developed strategy just like any other marketing tactic a company might implement. You can read the full article here. There is even a link at the bottom for more specific tips on how to minimize each risk. Happy social networking!

As we reach the end of a year, we typically take time to reflect on the past year and make plans for the New Year approaching. In reading several interesting year-end reflection articles, I observed common themes regardless of the industry or location. These themes bear consideration for us in the Printing Industry as we enter into 2012.

Any year has its share of passings, but 2011 seemed to hit Americans defined by their creativeness, competitiveness, and strong individuality particularly hard. Betty Ford and Maggie Daley, two women whose bravery and openness in fighting cancer while driving their causes saved countless lives. In the technology world 2011 saw the loss of Ken Olsen from Data General, Michael Hart, the father of the e-book and founder of the Gutenberg Project in 1971, and of course Steve Jobs, whose impact is undeniable.

American Politics had its usual share of “won’t they ever learn moments”, including the ‘Super Committee” failure to find savings to sufficiently reduce the debt, and the terrible mess with the US Postal Service which it seems is more politics than business. Financially, the economy continues to struggle in efforts to recover, and we find the term “jobless recovery” popping up all over. Perhaps no industry is more troubled by the economic woes than the Print Industry which continues to contract and struggle with customers shifting to digital and multi-channel communication.

We continue to see the expansion of the volumes and uses for data, and the real question is, how will we use all this data and convert it into useful information in running our businesses? Will we be able to find the right data, and will it help us to just get a bit better or can we generate meaningful change and new opportunities?

Macro trends with direct impact on our industry include:

• Mobile communication is here to stay with 5.1 billion people owning a cell phone according to Mobile Marketing Association. Consumer time being spent on mobile devices is rising faster than all other media. Integrating mobile into our customer communication campaigns to inform, engage and entertain customers must be a priority for all business and consumer communication companies.
• Companies seeking to secure current customers and attract new ones are putting the customer relationship first. They are looking to connect more deeply and more often, putting customers at the center of their efforts to remain relevant to them despite fast changing preferences and demands.
• Marrying communication design and technology is mandatory. We have to get smarter about how we plan and develop the customer communication experience. As budgets shrink and options increase we must adopt a design once and deploy frequently approach. How to integrate the multi-channel options for the most impact across the geo-demographic base is a major challenge.

All of these themes are intertwined and related. Taking steps to understand how they have impacted us and how we will react is important in how we go forward into 2012. As for me, I believe that eliminating silos and taking an end-to-end view of business improvement is critical to continue to increase productivity and competitive success. What is your most pressing need in 2012 and how can others help?

This is the last in my three-part series “Lessons from the 1:1 Printing Gurus.” Last week, we talked to Jeff Stewart, chief technology officer of Trekk Cross-Media. This week, we round out the series by talking to Kate Dunn, president and owner of Digital Innovations Group.

HTW: When people think about databases, they often think strategy. Rarely do you hear people talk about the raw data. What advice do you have for them?

Dunn: A lot of people think that once they buy data, they are ready to create a 1:1 campaign. But the data clients provide or the data you buy rarely can be used in its raw state.

For example, you might buy a list that tells you whether someone is married or single. However, you aren’t going to send out a piece that says, “John, you’re single, so you might be interested in this . . . .” Instead, you’ll say, this group is single, so we’ll use this picture and this messaging. This group is married, so we’ll use that picture and that messaging.” Married or single is what the database says. You have to extrapolate how you want the data to fall into your piece.

HTW: You care how the piece is going to read, too. I know you have some thoughts about that.

Dunn: Yes! For example, if you are looking to sell graduate programs to an audience with specific undergraduate degrees, the data might come in abbreviated, such as BA His for Bachelor of the Arts in History. How do you want to portray that in my copy? You certainly don’t want to say, “John, since receiving your BA His. . .” Or if a bank wants to mail to everyone who doesn’t already have a checking account with its institution, it may send you a database in which the people who have checking accounts are flagged. Now you have to turn that around and use that to select out the people you don’t want to contact.

Of course, in some cases, you are just dropping in raw data like an account balance or a product ID. But more often, you need to massage the data so that it reads properly. Say you will be using the name of someone’s alma mater in a fundraiser. You don’t want to say, “As a graduate of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University . . . “ That’s how the data will show up, but nobody talks like that. They’d say Virginia Tech.

HTW: Even if you have a lot of data, you don’t necessarily want to let the recipient know how much data you are using. Can you talk a little about that?

Dunn: I agree. If you tip your hand too much, you could end up scaring people. For example, you don’t want to send a piece that says, “Kate, I know you love Stuart Weitzman shoes because you bought 15 pairs last year.” That’s stalkish. You can use that data, but you need to use it in a different way. Instead, when the postcard comes, it should show the stylish pumps you know I like, and the copy should say something like, “Buy one, get one free” or whatever offer you want to make. It accomplishes the same thing without being scary.

That’s what I mean that the data is never ready to flow into the piece. You have to massage the data and apply logic to accomplish the goal you want. In other words, data is data. It’s not necessarily consumable. You may have to make the data consumable.

Last week, I started a series of posts titled “lessons from the 1:1 printing gurus.” I kicked offwith Rick Littrell, president and CMO of MagiComm, talking about setting goals and strategies for the campaign. This week, I talk to Jeff Stewart,CTO of Trekk Cross-Media, who discusses integrating multiple media into 1:1 campaigns.

HTW: Once you have your recipient lists, how do you start thinking about how the data can be used by the different channels?

Stewart: You start by asking what you need to do with that data to work within the needs of each channel. You should make your touch points specific to each medium and take advantage of the features it has to offer.

You want to be able to generate the most response to the messages as you can for the dollars available. That is why we deploy media in sequence and not simultaneously. Let’s say it costs us $100 to do a Facebook campaign, $1000 to do an email campaign, and $10,000 for a print campaign. You’ll start with the least expensive medium and gather the low-hanging fruit first. Then you’ll follow up with next most costly alternative, then the next.  Overall, this is how you generate the best ROI.

HTW: Many marketers want to create silos of actions, not integrated actions. How do you handle this?

Stewart:  In 1:1, you want one database from which you generate all of your marketing activity. For example, if I’m sending email, followed by postcards to those who don’t respond to the email, I need to create a field in the database that indicates whether or not people responded. This is as simple as creating a field that says yes they responded or they did not. We use the data to decide the next steps and who gets what message in what channel. This is increasingly important, and channel options and consumer behavior are getting more complex.

HTW: How about social media? How does it fit into the equation?

Stewart: Newer social media applications like Facebook actually have a lot of similarities to older channels like email. If you have a Facebook page, when people “like” or “friend” you, this is the equivalent of getting opt-in for email. Once they take this step, you can send automated and personalized messages.

What we have done of late — and something we have been very successful with — is kicking off the campaign with social media as a broadcast medium. We post the campaign information as a wall post or ad and that drives people to our campaign’s Facebook page. It might be the “spray and pray” method, but it costs next to nothing to replicate through the different domains.

HTW: What are some of the biggest mistakes people make when launching 1:1 campaigns?

Stewart: If you are about to launch a 1:1 campaign for the first time, familiarize yourself with how databases work and make sure you’re using a real database program and not something like Excel (use Microsoft Access instead). In Excel, we find that it is too easy for people compromise the data (such as sorting single columns by accident) and it can create havoc with ZIP codes with leading zeros.

Pay very close attention to the cleanliness of the data in general. Traditional mass mailing lists will tolerate some pretty significant bad records—upwards of 5% – 10%. 1:1 print cannot, so we spend a lot of time on the front end making sure the data is clean and accurate. We strive for no more than .5% – 1% undeliverable.

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Next week, we hear the views of Kate Dunn of DIG Creative.

If you offer digital printing, you’ll need to be comfortable working with databases—those pesky but necessary things. To this end, I’m going to use the next few posts to share some interviews I’ve conducted with some of the industry’s leading experts on 1:1 printing.

This week, we listen to the insight of Rick Littrell, president and CMO of Magicomm.

HTW: Before launching any 1:1 printing campaign, you first have to plan it. Where do you begin?

Litrell: To plan a campaign, you must start by asking some basic questions.

• What is the client’s target market?
• What is its value proposition?
• What pain points is it fixing at a high level?
• Is the company entering a new market or expanding into an existing market?

If the client is producing a B2B application, you also need to know what level in the company you should be dealing with. Sometimes it’s the CEO. Other times it’s the operations manager. Other times, it’s the sales manager. Sometimes it’s a combination.

HTW: Once you have this information, how do you use it?

Litrell: We have had good success with segmenting the message based on title within target companies. This means targeting the message to multiple people within the same company, each with a slightly different angle that makes the pitch relevant to them. The CEO wants your product for one reason. The COO wants it for another. Then you get a feel for why they buy. What are their pain points? This allows you to plan your messaging accordingly.

Once we know who we are talking to and what motivates them, we like to validate this with real users. I’ll ask my clients to give me the top 10 people who use their product or service so I can talk to them. I want to find out if there is something hidden that the client doesn’t know about.

HTW: How about your mailing list? How do you handle that?

Litrell: It starts by finding out what type of list does the client has. Is it an internal list or a purchased list? If it’s an in-house list, do you need to add variables to it? Does the client want to expand that list to add new prospects? If so, what is the profile of the person you are going after? What data do you need to meet that profile? Where are you going to get it? How much data is available?

Once you have answers to these questions, you can start appending variables as it makes sense for the campaign.

HTW: With data, the opportunities are just about endless. I assume you help the client balance opportunity with cost.

Litrell: Absolutely. After the brainstorming session, clients’ creativity is often racing, and imagination outruns the budget extremely quickly. At this point, I’ll go back to the budget and bring it into reality. The client may be dreaming up a $250,000 campaign and they are only a $2 million company. So we need to figure out the best way to accomplish the most within their budget.

HTW: To what extent do you mix print with other media?

Litrell: One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that multi-channel campaigns really work. For that reason, most of what we do is multi-touch. This means prioritizing the media we are going to use. How much print does the client really want? How much email? Will we shoot video? The budget really flushes that out. Just for the production portion of the job, you can assume $1 per postcard print and mail (not including databases or development). Therefore, if the client has a $30,000 budget and wants to mail to 20,000 people, they can’t do it. You’ll have to segment by media. Start with media like email and social media like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Then mail to a smaller segment of the overall list.

HTW: Of course, with any 1:1 printing strategy, it’s critical to track the metrics. How are your clients measuring results?

Litrell: As you go along, you need to set goals and design in metrics so you know how your strategy is working. How many leads are you getting? How are you going to track that? By number of Webinar sign-ups? Web traffic? Are you tracking revenue? Ideally, you want to tie everything to revenue generation if you can. We know this person was in the database, we touched them, and then they purchased. Sometimes the touch doesn’t turn into revenue for six months — long after the campaign is actually over. It’s hard to measure that, but it’s a good practice to put a plan into place to try.

As we go along, we have a strategy document that we give to the client as a roadmap. We like to get their sign-off. Is this right? Yes or no? This way, the strategy is clear and understood by everyone. Then we can begin the content development.

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Next week, we’ll listen to the input of Jeff Stewart from Trekk Cross-Media.

My first reaction after listening to Dr. Joe Webb’s economic webinar last week was to go out and slit my wrists. The forecast for the economy in general continues to be poor and for print there seems to be no hope.

• GDP is still sluggish
• 2012 unemployment to “improve” – for the wrong reasons
• CPI “moderating” – but prices too high when real wages keep falling
• 2011 Inflation Adjusted Print and Print Services Shipments continue to be at or below 2010 and lowest in 5 years
• Forecast for US Commercial Print Shipments from 2011 to 2017 by WTT ERC drops from $85 B to $ 52 B

However, when I thought about many of the companies I know in the industry, they continue to actually thrive and not just survive, so what is their secret and how do we increase the number of companies being successful in the industry?

We all need to realize that continuous change is going to be a part of the way we do business for the near term, and will be required for long term survival. We depend on technology, and the equipment and software rate of change continues to increase. Channels and methods of communicating are expanding, and customers’ preferences evolving, and after all, we are really in the communication business.

Think about the conservative banking industry, which took a long time to move from personal banking to ATM’s and online services, and now have gone mobile, allowing checks to be deposited from a smart phone by taking a picture. Balances can be checked, and even transfers from account to account take place any time and from anywhere. The successful companies I know and read about are listening to their customers and are open to modifying their business models to accommodate customer demands. This is not a surefire solution and certainly not easy, as it means moving from our areas of comfort and experience.

What I think the industry needs more than anything now is to find ways to help each other make the industry strong, and to establish networks and resources to accelerate change. Companies should focus on customer service, putting the customer needs first, and find ways to diversify and differentiate themselves as partners in selective service areas complementing their core offerings. Companies and owners need to choose an area of expertise, and then utilize all the resources available including supplier expertise, associations, and consultants to fill in gaps and build upon their own expertise. Organizations need to resist the temptation to do everything themselves and build partnership relationships with other service providers in providing a complete solution set.

As we end this year we should not view the position as hopeless but rather recommit ourselves to working together and to embracing the change around us. Let us each and every one commit ourselves to staying relevant to the changing needs of our customer base. As General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U. S. Army said “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”

 Looking to grow your print business? Visit MyPressGo for your personalized business development program created by and for digital printers.

Since being launched in 1995, digital production presses have continued to evolve with improved speed, image quality, and lower cost of operation. Digital printing has become integrated into commercial print shops and in-plant environments for small runs and on-demand printing. In addition, Web-enabled printing and new finishing capabilities have created a number of new business opportunities directly linked to substrates. These emerging and profitable applications include labels and packaging, photo books, personal publishing, point-of-purchase signage, and an array of creative direct mail pieces.

The range of substrates that can run through the digital press needs to be a key consideration in making the digital decision. Marketers view the paper as one opportunity for their target audience to hold the firm’s identity in their hands. This rare and intimate occasion can vastly influence the recipient’s perception of the organization – is the firm a “discount” provider with basic materials or a “high quality” marketer with rich paper stocks and vivid colors?

The Canon imagePRESS Series is about versatility with paper selection. The Canon imagePRESS Series lets commercial and in-plant printers offer customers the right stock for the job. The system can print on lightweight, coated, uncoated, and specialty media with weights from 60 to 325 gsm and sizes from 13″ x 19.2″. Automatic duplexing is supported on all stocks. Users can produce full-bleed booklets, thicker business cards and postcards, and forms or inlays on thinner lighter stock.

The Canon imagePRESS Series also comes with a wide range of finishing options so that the commercial printer or in-plant can take on more jobs. Documents can be stacked for flat or offline finishing. In addition, there are in-line options that include the ability to print and create perfect-bound books with up to 200 sheets. The press can create tabbed, hole-punched training materials and catalogs. The use of an integrated saddle stitcher can produce full-bleed, three-side trimmed booklets of up to 100 pages that lay perfectly flat. Print facilities can also saddle-stitch jobs printed on custom-size paper and mixed media.

The range of paper stocks and finishing capabilities can make a big difference in the bottom line, optimizing the return on investment for the commercial or in-plant printer. The Canon imagePRESS Series has the ability to drive high-value and more complex applications that clients request, including brochures, books, magazines, photo specialty products, promotional fliers, and personalized direct mail. With this new system, print providers can enter the lucrative digital color print market or expand their existing capabilities.

Visit OceWow.com to view the Canon imagePRESS Series demo video!

This weekend, I updated my aggregated QR code data report (QR Codes: The Data Speaks) again. This time I added some data from Archrival, a youth marketing agency that recently conducted research on the use of QR codes by college students.

In essence, the research asked 500 college students on 24 different campuses whether they had seen QR codes, whether they had scanned them, and whether they would scan them again. It also showed them a sample QR code and asked them to scan it.

The results?

• 80% of the students surveyed had seen QR codes
• 21% were able to successfully scan the sample code
• 75% said they were unlikely to scan them in the future

What’s up with that? 80% have seen the codes but only 21% were able to actually scan them? Three-quarters wouldn’t try it again? Isn’t this supposed to be the most tech-savvy group of consumers?

According to Archrival, students struggled with the process. Some didn’t know a third-party app was needed to scan the code; many figured (mistakenly) that the code could be activated with their camera simply by taking a picture; and others just lost interest, saying the process took too long. Archrival claims that this shows that QR codes aren’t all that. After all, most mega-trends start here.

I’m not so sure about this conclusion. First, Archrival lost my confidence when the QR code it used as an illustration on the webpage reporting the results went . . . right back to the webpage I was already on. With such a lack of foresight, it causes me — not to question their data (after all, numbers are numbers) but their conclusions about what the data mean.

I remember when I was a college student. Life revolved around getting a date, getting to class, and scraping up change in the car seats to buy gas. I didn’t get direct mail. I didn’t have time to read magazines. I didn’t have the money to go clothes shopping or out to eat. Of my friends who did, most were using daddy’s credit card and couldn’t have cared less about downloading a coupon or getting a deal.

Times have changed, of course, but kids are still kids, even if nobody listens to A Flock of Seagulls anymore. The prime user base for QR codes isn’t college students. It’s post-college adults who are navigating the worlds of business and home for whom QR codes serve an immediate, practical purpose beyond the cool factor.

Hence my skepticism that just because college students aren’t heavy on the QR codes doesn’t mean that these codes aren’t an important response mechanism today. I think they are. Because of the way these codes are used (and who uses them and why) college students should no more be the barometer of QR codes’ future relevance than preschool-age students on the subject of hybrid cars.

Adobe has been making waves with its series of acquisitions over the past few years, including Web analytics provider Omniture and content management provider Day Software. More recently, Adobe acquired web font specialist Typekit, electronic signature provider EchoSign, and video enhancement software provider Iridas Technology.

At a financial analyst briefing in November, Adobe made a number of announcements about what it is doing with those acquisitions, and more broadly, the direction in which the company is headed. Most of the news coverage in the tech community that surrounded this briefing was Adobe’s intention to stop any future development of its Flash for mobile platform. Instead, the company is opting to focus on leveraging HTML5 and other standard Web technologies in the mobile arena. Adobe is also putting more emphasis on these technologies in general, as showcased by some of its concept products it has released for testing, including Muse (aimed at helping users design and publish HTML websites without the need to write code) and Edge (an application that is meant to help people create animated Web content using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript).

Some noted the scaling back of Flash as a posthumous win for the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who was adamantly opposed to putting Flash on Apple’s iDevices because of what he felt were flaws that made Flash inferior in the mobile realm. What was substantially under-reported in the tech world was Adobe’s clear shift in direction, as highlighted by a reorganization that re-targets the company to focus on two main areas: digital media and digital marketing.

The company is also pushing its users to get out of a perpetual licensing model of buying and upgrading its Creative Suite product line to a cloud-based subscription pricing model that lets users pay for access to Creative Suite tools on a monthly basis. To do this, Adobe has developed the Creative Cloud, a Web-based community and portal for users to manage their Creative Suite applications and connect with other creative professionals. While the company will continue to sell perpetual licenses in the near future, it has very clear plans to fully migrate 100% of Creative Suite users to the Creative Cloud over time.

With the Creative Cloud on the Digital Media side, there is also Adobe’s cloud-based Digital Marketing Suite, which is geared toward the company’s solutions for digital marketing, including Web and social analytics, content management, digital asset management, eCommerce, display advertising, e-mail marketing, and customer relationship management. Adobe’s goal is to provide a suite of solutions for marketing professionals that can help them compete effectively in the online channel.

Furthermore, Adobe is shifting its business strategy from simply being a technology provider to a company that also provides services to help businesses with things like content monetization. In this sense, Adobe’s transformation pushes it closer to competing with some of its customers and partners; it will be interesting to see how this plays out in the near future. Just weeks after its financial analyst briefing, the company announced the acquisition of Efficient Frontier, a provider of digital ad buying and performance management solutions. This acquisition is further proof that Adobe is intent on not just providing tools to create content, but that it fully wants to provide solutions to help its customer monetize the content they are creating.

All in all, Adobe’s changes are much more substantial than no longer developing Flash for mobile; the company is totally revamping its strategy to focus on digital media and digital marketing, and expanding its scope to offer companies help with content monetization. As an unfortunate by-product of this reorganization, Adobe is also laying off about 750 people, or around 7% of its workforce. Layoffs aside, the company is, of course, painting a compelling future for itself, as well as digital media and marketing in general. With the marketing and media landscapes still undergoing a high degree of transformation, it may not be a bad bet.

What do you think of Adobe’s recent moves? Can it refocus its business while maintaining trust and good relationships with its long-standing customer base? Have you already moved from a perpetual licensing model to a monthly subscription via the Creative Cloud? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

This week’s fold is a Storytelling Vertical Open Gate into Accordion submitted by VSA Partners in Chicago. It’s a great example of how a folding can tell a company’s story. While this was not used as a direct mail piece, it’s a creative leave behind piece that people will want hold on to. The designer made great use of strategically placed QR codes to drive viewers to visit the website and specific videos. Enjoy!

When you think about the U. S. Post Office’s new Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) program, you might not think digital print. After all, this program, while offering postal rates as low as 14.2 cents per piece, appears to go against everything we like about digital. It’s nameless, addressless (at least to the sender), and static. Isn’t that what we’re trying to get away from?

Here are three reasons digital print shops should absolutely consider EDDM for their clients:

1. EDDM programs are ideal for highly geographically targeted (read “short run”) marketing campaigns. You may not be targeting by demographic, but geography is a target audience, too. Think about store openings, event announcements, and announcements of discounts or sales (as long as they are not too time-sensitive).

2. EDDM can be a springboard for personalization. Sure, the pieces cannot be personalized, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t capture information for later use. Add a weblink or QR code that points to an online survey or form where people can answer questions and give feedback.

3. EDDM flats are over-sized (15” x 12” max; 11.5” x 6.125” min), which will tend to increase response rates. There is more than one way to lift a response rate. Combine the over-sized size requirements with bright colors, unusual shapes and die-cuts, and great creative and you have a great response rate brewing. Isn’t increased response rates — however you get there — what digital is all about?

Every Door Direct Mail offers not just an opportunity for your customers to save on postage, but tremendous opportunity for lead generation, database-building, and creativity in marketing.

It’s all over the Internet, stuffed into every eNewsletter, offered up on any website that works, glowing LED at every click. It’s marketing VIDEO. By the end of 2012, we’re going to be seeing so much of it people will begin to ask [all over again] whether “this is the death of print.”

Examples? How about the following three videos, all of which landed on my desk in a single morning (December 1).

Square2Marketing has its “Video Marketing Minute.”

Direct Marketing IQ [Target Marketing Group] has DMIQTV.

Production Solutions features Package Formats that will get your attention.

None of these videos are fancy-schmancy. They feature real people talking about — and demonstrating — marketing expertise. The films are short, sweet, and targeted.

There’s plenty more where this came from, so if video isn’t on your 2012 calendar (yet), you still have 30 days to put it there. Happy New Year!

p.s. In its Who’s Mailing What archive report, DirectMarketingIQ.com reported a big crash (33% decline) in B2B direct mail in 2011. Please note that all of the above videos are B2B efforts.

I recently had the opportunity to watch a Webinar moderated by Barb Pellow and paneled by Sprint and its agency Weber Associates on the topic of Web-enabled marketing supply chain management. In other words, Web-to-print. Sprint has 7,000 B2B reps and 1,000 (ish) assets in its B2B library across multiple verticals. It has to run a tight ship.

When Andrew Leatherman, partner with Weber Associates, discussed keys to success in implementing the system, he discussed stemming the tide of homemade or unauthorized customizations of branded materials, which can end up being spread throughout the organization and perpetuating error. This is a phenomenon he calls “misinformation gone viral.”

It is one of the major challenges facing large branded organizations with decentralized marketing that allow dealers, reps, distributors, retail locations, and others to create or modify their own marketing materials. The result is dilution and loss of control of the brand, not to mention perpetuation of error. It is one of the main justifications for addition or upgrading of Web-enabled marketing collateral management systems.

Mark Rexroat, director of retail communications and marketing services for Sprint, noted that one of its keys to success was, in fact, that once the library of assets was established, those rogue materials were cut off immediately.

“We used the carrot and the stick approach,” he said. “We made the tools as friendly as possible, but we also cut off the asset distribution through other channels because, at some points in time, we had upwards of five to eight different libraries of sales and marketing information.”

This amputation was combined with a companywide training program to get buy-in at all levels of the organization, from operations to sales. In the end? Sprint experienced a 722% increase in adoption of the system by its B2B reps and a 40% reduction in marketing communication expenses.

So success with Web-to-print means cutting ‘em off.  In a good way, of course.