What is NFC?

NFC stands for Near Field Communication and the short answer would be that NFC identifies us. It allows smartphones to be identified and it establishes a radio communication. Think short range wireless RFID technology.

You may have heard of NFC and its ability to make mobile payments easy. Account information is stored on the smartphone and when in close contact with the payment receiving technology, it passes along that account information, enabling a payment to be made.

However, NFC can be a great marketing tool for mobile marketing. And there is also talk of how NFC will help in terms of rewarding customer loyalty. The bonus is that NFC is more interactive and engaging than your typical marketing message. It’s not a “look at me” marketing strategy. It’s more of a “hey, look what we’ve got for you, are you interested?” kind of connection with the audience.

How does NFC work?

NFC is like your short and skinny pal. He can’t reach very far. And he can’t throw a weighty punch. But he’s scrappy and useful in certain situations.  This low power and short-range wireless link allows for information to be passed between a smartphone and another device. While it is short range (think inches), it does not require contact. But most importantly, it allows for the information to relay back and forth between two devices instead of that relay being a one way street.

Not only is it short-range, NFC is slow. Especially when you compare it to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. But the perk is that NFC consumes very little power. It won’t strain a smartphone battery and suck it dry.

A smartphone enabled with NFC can share and interact with another NFC device, or with a “passive” NFC tag. No app needed. And the NFC tag is like a tiny chip that may be embedded (in a poster, a business card and so on) somewhere and has data ready to transfer to a NFC enabled device. The tag doesn’t even need power. Instead, the radio frequency field generated by the NFC device (like your smartphone) does the work, and the data from the tag is transferred to the device.

• What’s so awesome about NFC?
• How is NFC used in the real world?
• How can you put NFC to work for your business?

Get the answers to these questions and more in:

As a utility consumer, I have needs. I need to be asked how I’m doing. I need to feel needed. I need to be understood. I desire warmth from more than just my HVAC unit.

I want to know where my money is going and why I owe as much as I do. Once I come to terms with the hard fact that I indeed do need to part with my hard-earned money, I want it to be as convenient and easy to decipher as possible. I want to be able to check my bill from my phone or computer and have the option to pay from my mobile phone.

I don’t want to call a customer service line, and I don’t want to navigate through a series of voice prompts. Parting with my hard earned money isn’t an intrinsically fun thing to do, so when I have an experience with my utility company, I’m already on the defensive. I need my utility company to open a communication with me, not just a one-way message. I don’t at all mind the utility company sharing a third-party deal with me, as long as it applies to me, and isn’t a hassle to read through.

What I can’t deal with is poor design that lacks graphics to clarify my statement. I’m a visual learner, so I need to see where my money is going. I want to see the crucial information front and center. If I have to call customer service, I want to easily find my account number and all other pertinent information in one place. I want an e-statement that looks like my bill. I find it helpful to see why I’m using so much energy, and I like to see if I was demonstrated better or worse habits in the prior year (or better than my neighbors!). I want to see actual meter readings and I want to know how to lower my consumption. I also don’t like getting a water bill, a sewer bill and a waste collection bill separately, when all three are paid with the same invoice!

Also, I need reminders. A printed bill in the mail is a great reminder, but for some bills, I prefer e-presentment and mobile solutions. When I use e-statements, it really helps to get a reminder in my email or a text to my phone. If there’s one thing I hate more than having to pay bills, is paying late fees. A simple reminder and an easy to use payment portal help me make late fees a thing of the past. I have some bills on autopay from my bank, some I pay monthly with my credit card and some I send a check for- so I count on my utility provider to make it easy on me with a reminder. The worst is getting hassled by customer service or risking a service interruption from a late payment when literally, “The check is in the mail!” Please track your remittance efforts as well, and save us all some time!

I understand that some providers have an outdated legacy system in place, but that is no excuse to not get with the times. Work with a provider to transform your legacy system into a more modern system, and begin a statement archival system for easy access in the future. Offer me online and offline options for my statement. Offer an electronic bill pay system.

Is that too much to ask?

About this time last year I posted a release about the new retail sales branch opened by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey. Horizon was one of the first health insurance companies to take a “retail” approach to selling individual insurance policies under the then newly approved Affordable Care Act.

In May of 212, Forbes reported on the partnership between Aetna and Costco to offer the Costco Personal Health Insurance medical and dental program.  Consumers who buy the Aetna coverage through Costco will get extra discounts when they buy prescriptions through Costco pharmacies. Costo had already developed banking partnerships to allow them to sell mortgages.

This year we are starting to see the life insurance industry, particularly products geared to lower and middle income consumers, pursue retail sales opportunities. MetLife, for example, has set up kiosks in hundreds of Walmart stores. Unlike the Horizon branch which has specially trained staff to answer questions, visitors to a MetLife kiosk pick up their “box of insurance” in the form of a prepaid card and take it to the checkout. They then have to call MetLife’s toll-free number to answer health questions posed by a life agent. If the customer qualifies for coverage, the policy is activated, otherwise the card can be returned for a full refund.

Two key things we can learn from this trend:

1. As more insurance companies start courting retail partners as distribution channels, or opening up direct branches, they will need a new “retail approach” to their communications as well. This opens up new opportunities for graphic arts services like signage, sell sheets, and packaging for direct branches. It should also increase potential for transaction printers to offer statement marketing to highlight approved retail partners. Design services are a potential “foot in the door” as so much new material will need to be developed for the retail audience.

2. Partnerships, particularly distribution partnerships, can be wonderful things. Printers and other business communications professionals may also find value in new distribution channels and regional partnerships. Insurers are able to reach a broader audience that will pay a premium for convenience through retail relationships. Perhaps there are similar opportunities out there for your business.

If retail and insurance are getting married, let’s crash the wedding or at least get some good dating advice.

Elizabeth Gooding is the President of Gooding Communications Group and editor of the Insight Forums blog. She writes and speaks and provides training on trends and opportunities for business communications professionals within regulated vertical industries.

David Mamet, the award-winning American playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and film director, has said goodbye to the traditional publishing model with his latest book, a combination of a novella and two short stories about war, and has chosen to self-publish instead.

Mamet is a formidable force in literature, playwriting, and screenwriting, so this is big news. As a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1984) and “Speed-the-Plow” (1988). As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for “The Verdict”(1982) and “Wag the Dog” (1997). (Source: Wikipedia) He has also written numerous books and written and directed many movies familiar to us all.

It’s not that print-on-demand production is better or less expensive. It’s that it offers freedom — freedom to market the way Mamet wants and freedom to earn substantially more than through the traditional royalties-based model.

The New York Times report doesn’t indicate whether Mamet will be using POD, but it’s certain that after the period of the highest volume sales has passed, he will . . . just like tens of thousands of other authors and publishers.

Self-publishing and POD have been around a long time, but the word that came to mind when I read the report was legitimacy.  A few authors have used self-publishing to rocket themselves to bestselling fame, but to date, most self-published authors are either using the model to feed their own highly targeted customer bases (corporations, nonprofits, ministries) or for their own personal use.

For someone like David Mamet to choose the self-publishing route, and consequently long-term POD, adds significant legitimacy to this approach and takes another cut at the knees of the traditional book publishing model.

In case you haven’t heard, the U.S. Postal Board has delayed the elimination of Saturday mail delivery slated to being August 5.

This doesn’t mean that the transition won’t happen. It just won’t happen immediately. Apparently, the board still supports the long-term elimination of Saturday mail, but it appears to be claiming that the USPS didn’t have the authority to change its own schedule and that legislation first must be passed to give it this authority.

The fallout?

Mailers don’t need to worry about adjusting their mailing schedules through summer and fall.

The USPS has expressed that, if it is not allowed to cut these $2 billion in costs by a change in schedule, heft rate increases may take it place.

In an article in DM News, there was an interesting comment from the perspective of catalogers, who apparently are very much in support of five-day mail delivery:

Our members say they’ll take one-day delivery if it translates into lower cost. That’s how much of an overarching concern cost is. — Hamilton Davison, president of the American Catalog Mailers Association

What do you think? Is the delay a relief or a concern?

Traditionally, web-to-print has been all about helping customers retain brand control, get their collateral faster, get better return on investment for marketing campaigns and realize savings on printing budgets. This was done by providing a system that encompassed online ordering, tracking and collaboration of materials. Web to print is still all about those things, but it has evolved with technology and now can be used to bridge the gap across multi-channel campaigns.

Today, a web to print solutions provider can help with:

- direct mail campaigns

- personalized URLs (pURLS)

- QR Codes

- website development

- social media

- cross channel marketing

It’s important to make sure that the data your business has is used to make your messages relevant. Catchy phrases and funny graphics only go so far. You need to make sure your message fits your audience. And along the way, your audience will tell you their preferred method of communication. With multiple touches, your marketing campaign will receive a better response rate. And it all wraps up with a more relevant and personalized way to reach out to your prospects and customers than other, less integrated approaches.

Web to print is able to automate many tasks that are typically repetitive, or done manually or offline. This frees staff up to work on other responsibilities. And it can help the overall budget, by decreasing production and fulfillment costs. In fact, the affordability of web to print solutions allows smaller companies with tight budgets to still get a lot of bang for their marketing bucks and reduce wasteful spending that often happens when campaigns are conducted without the consistency and care that can be found with web to print. Web to print also allows for timely adjustments to campaigns when needed. By tracking response actions and rates, you can make better informed decisions about your strategies.

Another important aspect of web to print is the ability to retain control of branding – with online offerings and print materials. It’s easy for things to become disjointed when they are handled with various solutions.  Instead, with web to print you streamline things so you don’t have too many hands in the cookie jar, watering down your message and overall brand.

In a nutshell, web to print helps you manage not only print collateral from any location at any time, but it can be used to create a fully functional, cost-saving cross channel campaign. The benefits include customizable content, managements of digital assets, consistency in branding, budget savings and higher response rates. And who doesn’t like better ROI on campaigns?

Want a little more info on this new world? Here is a free White Paper on integrated marketing. I call it the Holy Grail. 

We all know that e-readers are everywhere these days and, in only a few years, have become a commonplace way to consumer your favorite literature. But as the title of this blog suggests, an e-reader is not for everyone. Not everyone has the tech-savvy desire or budget for an e-reader and some people just flat out do not want to read books electronically. For some, there is still the allure of being able to physically turn the page of the book he or she is reading. I am one of those people. Even though I’m addicted to my iPhone, iPad, iShuffle and laptop, I still prefer to read my books in print. Perhaps it’s because I am employed by the printing industry, but I like to think it’s the experience of an actual book versus another one of the many tech products we all seem to own now. Maybe I’m just a hipster and like books because they are not the “in” item.

Regardless, books have been around for a long time and they will likely not disappear for good. Therefore, print will continue to play an important role in the book publishing industry, albeit in a somewhat different manner. Most publishers are looking for the ability to print shorter runs and print-on-demand. To do this, offset is not answer; digital printing is. Offset certainly still has its place. But for those of us who did not come up with The Hunger Games or 50 Shade of Grey, it can be hard to justify the high quantities of offset printing. Digital printing offers a flexible solution for printers to be able to print what they want, where they want, when they want, and in whatever quantity they want.

Ultimately, digital printing technology offers numerous benefits for printers. For one, it reduces the risk of having to forecast demand. Printers can now print only what is ordered, thereby eliminating warehousing needs and waste. Digital print also offers blazing fast turnaround times with some book printers being able to fulfill an order within 24 hours of receiving it. Finally, digital print allows for anyone to be a publisher. With no minimums to meet, books can be published in small quantities. Digital also allows for increased creativity through customization and personalization. All while creating a real life book that someone can hold!

The bottom line is that books are not a thing of the past, and by implementing digital printing technology, printers are able to stay in the game and are better equipped to deal with whatever trends may come their way. They can have greater turnover, new revenue opportunities, and improved profitability. And these business benefits are not just limited to book printers! Photo book sellers, self-publishers, non-profits, and corporations can all benefit from the publishing revolution through digital printing technology. The question is… how can you benefit from it?

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to print

The statements and bills of outrageous usage,

Or to take online against a sea of logins,

And by accepting digital mailboxes? To print: to email;

Much more!

Ah, Shakespeare and his affinity for transactional documents. Well documented in his masterpieces, such as “A Midsummer Night’s Data” and “Much Ado about Printing,” Shakespeare is not the only one that noticed a shifting landscape from print-only transactional documents to online documents. Well, which one is better? To print or not to print?

As you might have guessed, the answer is not a simple one. I recently read an article in the Digital Nirvana blog describing the online shift for statements. To quote the article: “According to a massive 2011 InfoTrends study, the shift is taking place slower than anticipated. In fact, only 11% of American consumers receive their bills electronically.” Whereas, the perceived shift to electronic communications seemed prevalent (at least to me), consumers still crave printed materials, for reference purposes and for security.

Why print?

First and foremost, consumer preference leans towards the printed piece. In Epsilon’s consumer preference survey, direct mail was the channel of choice for health information, insurance information, and financial services statements. 62% of Americans enjoyed checking the mailbox daily. Print technology is simply making the printed piece even more engaging, and consumers also expressed that printed mail is easier to reference at a later date. Digital Print technology has evolved in such a way to take statements and personalize them to levels never before thought possible. Utility statements can show individualized usage charts and suggestions based on energy consumption. 401k mailing and insurance statements can pair with information databases to show full color representations of distribution and growth, as well as market trends. These personalization options will continue to shift consumer preference towards print, and any business can outsource the data storage, printing and mailing responsibilities to a qualified provider.

Why online?

According to the same Channel Preference study, Mobile device users were 40-50% more likely to prefer email and online communications, respectively, than non-users. This fact is important to note in an increasingly connected and mobile world. Not only are statements shifting to online options, but mobile apps for statements and utilities are surfacing, as well. Younger generations are being raised in an online world, and when they become billpayers and recipients of medical statements and 401k breakouts, they will expect them to be digital communications. The social media component very well might eventually pair with transactional documents in the future, and digital mailboxes will provide a level of security to appease those concerned about online threats.

So to print or not?

Both. The answer lies in determining and exercising your client preferences. Finding out whether your customer prefers electronic presentment is the first step in statement redesign and billing preference. Whereas mobile is convenient, the printed piece offers great levels of personalization, color, and is tactile. For a long time to come, the solution lies in combining the printed world and the online world into an overarching multichannel strategy. Preparing your statements for both online and printed communications will allow the customer to choose how and when they transition between mediums and will help you answer the question “To print or not to print?”

At a Canon Oce webinar on January 23, InfoTrends Group Director Barbara Pellow presented “2013 Top 10 Trends for the Printing Industry.”

1. Digital Color is King. All bets are on digital color printing. InfoTrends research forecasts an increase from $29.6 to $39.5 billion in the retail value of  U.S. digital color from 2011 through 2016.

2. Digital Wide Format Goes Mainstream. Digital wide format printing evolves into an key component of companies’ marketing strategies, and will continue its 7% CAGR from 2011 through 2016.

3. Inkjet Accelerates Migration from Offset to Digital. New inkjet solutions offer greater speed, quality, substrate flexibility, and finishing –  as well as more  competitive pricing. Major inkjet growth expected from books, direct mail, transpromo and brochure printing.

4. Enhanced Substrates Drive Digital. Digital presses support new, high margin substrates: rugged synthetics; pressure sensitive stocks; specialty media; pre-scored, ready-to-print dimensional stock; new photobook media, and others.

5. Web-to-Print Manages Marketing Supply Chains. Companies spend billions for producing, shipping, storing, and handling literature. PSPs will optimize the marketing supply chain  – offering online print-on-demand collateral catalogues.

6. Content Reigns. Fifty-four percent of B2B firms increase spending on content marketing. PSP’s cultivate “thought leadership” offering content that educates, entertains and motivates.

7. Hyper-Personalization Drives Digital Print. 2013 is the “Year of Hyper-Personalization” – when marketing materials address more relevant, compelling needs of the consumer. Examples: mailers with personalized map directions and printed materials with PURLs linked to pre-approved applications.

8. Trigger-Based Marketing Meets Customer Preferences. Consumers expect real-time, two-way communications, through mobile devices, websites, and social media. PSPs customers will adopt marketing automation technology, e.g., from Market Sprocket, Hubspot, Orange Soda and Hootsuite.

9. Mobile Marketing Changes Communications. PSPs add mobile marketing solutions to the portfolio: mobile codes printed on packaging, POS, and brochures;  “opt-in mobile messaging” to mobile devices; Augmented Reality – digital graphics coded onto physical objects – revealing information or entertainment via mobile devices.

10. Direct Mail and Social Media Converge. PSPs support customers with social media marketing tools from Ducky, Hootsuite, SpreadFast, and others. Campaigns integrating direct mail with social media lift responses for both.

Property and Casualty (P&C) Insurance carriers are in the business of assessing risk; risk of theft, damage, injury, professional malpractice and catastrophe as well as investment risk. They make their money by laying odds on the likelihood that things will go sideways for their customers and that they will earn enough money by investing the pool of premium dollars to pay out on the bet if things do. Lately it seems that climate change is blowing up all the models for setting the odds of a natural disaster and insurers are dealing with defining and delineating coverage for new threats like cyber-terrorism that have completely changed the game.

The core systems most insurers have in place are woefully inadequate to handle the scope and pace of this new insurance game. In order to keep up, companies have built add-on modules and work-arounds to their core systems, often relying on Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access “Band-Aids” to keep business moving. Many carriers that have upgraded their core systems did it on a “go-forward” basis leaving existing business on the old policy administration or claims system and writing new business on the new platform. At some companies this has happened more than once and there are now several “core” systems in production for different lines of business. All of the Band-Aids, work-arounds and go-forward solutions have left data scattered in multiple repositories just when carriers need data in one place more than ever.

In order to adequately assess risk, insurance carriers need large amounts of policy, claims, fraud and customer demographic data all in one place so that they can use risk modeling and data analytics to determine which types of risk are profitable to insure.  According to Accenture’s  2012 North American Claims Investment Survey, 54% of P&C insurers have core systems that are more than five years old, 66% say their claims systems are not optimized to collect and analyze data and 78% regard their capabilities inadequate to manage new forms and levels of risk, such as those presented by cybercrime, terrorism and increasingly frequent and severe natural catastrophes. So, after years of avoiding the disruption, expense and well – risk of a major core systems upgrade many companies have realized that they just can’t avoid taking the leap. A small study of 37 insurance carriers by Novarica indicated that 25 percent of large P&C insurers and more than 40 percent of midsize carriers were in the middle of converting their policy administration systems or planning to start a conversion at the end of 2011.

Keep in mind that the typical core systems upgrade will take from an incredibly fast eighteen months to a more typical three years plus to complete, depending on the number of undocumented work-arounds that need to be incorporated into the system and the level of data conversion to be completed. This means that a large percentage of the industry is either planning a core system upgrade or in the midst of completing one. And what comes out of these systems you ask? Documents, lots and lots of documents: quotes, policies, premium invoices, notices, claims reports, payments and more.

Opportunities abound for reducing the costs of producing documents in parallel with core systems conversion. Bringing systems together increases the opportunity for postal optimization, targeting analytics and improvements to the design of the documents themselves. The core systems upgrades have a larger implication as well; they enable insurers to develop more segmented and personalized products to appeal to different age, risk, ethnic and geographic groups of consumers. Direct marketing and agency marketing support is becoming more tailored and personalized as well with multi-touch, multi-channel and multi-language campaigns hitting the paper, airwaves and cyberspace simultaneously.

P&C Insurers are expected to spend an average of 17.5 million on Claims System upgrades alone. This seems like a pretty substantial number until you consider that the top 16 P&C insurers spend an average of $315 million on advertising each. GEICO alone spent over $993 million on advertising in 2011. This is not counting direct marketing spend – P&C Affinity Mail alone exceeded 500 million mailings in 2011 according to Mintel Comperemedia.

Savvy service providers are positioning themselves to help insures take advantage of newly upgraded systems and a wealth of new data to improve their customer experience throughout the insurance lifecycle. With their plates full to overflowing with core systems conversion initiatives, insurers need help to ensure that the tangible representation of their value to consumers – namely insurance documents – are not put at risk by the very projects intended to reduce risk. Now is the time to show insurers how to redirect some of those advertising dollars toward investments in customer experience and cross-sell using low-risk, high-reward solutions like direct mail, statement marketing and personalized collateral in tandem with QR codes and other calls to action that drive social media engagement and leverage consumers interest in mobile insurance applications. If your company isn’t positioned to help them, maybe you should be looking at some core systems upgrades too.

Elizabeth Gooding is the President of Gooding Communications Group and the Editor of InsightForums.com. She covers business communications trends in highly regulated industries such as insurance, financial services, healthcare and telecommunications.

In 2010 two of the printing industries largest players – Canon and Océ – announced plans to merge with Canon taking over Océ North America. That announcement has officially come to fruition with the launch of Canon Solutions America, Inc., on January 1^st of this New Year. The new company reports to Canon U.S.A. and combines the best of both companies to offer a depth of sales and support for Canon and Océ hardware, software and services targeting general office, production print and large format markets.

While this is major industry news, what does it mean for customers of both companies, print providers, and marketing service providers? I’ve tried to sum up a few key areas below:

• Increased Focus on R&D. Canon and Océ product strengths complement each other in that Canon is strong in office printers while Océ is a market leader in continuous feed, high-volume, and wide format printers. Canon has shown a large commitment to funding R&D which will benefit all product lines and allow the companies to build on each other’s strengths.
• Service. Océ is known for its quick response times and exemplary servicing practices to average 98% uptime. Canon production customers will now benefit from this and receive the same promise of efficiency and uptime.
• Workflow. Océ PRISMA® workflow software has been greatly successful in on-demand printing environments. Now the software will be available for both Canon and Océ product… handling new job types in shorter run lengths with the ability to support converging offset and variable data applications
• Financing. Canon brings financial strength to the table which means more options for financing and leasing printing equipment – this goes for both Canon and Océ product lines.

Those are just a few things to be on the lookout for as the new Canon Solutions America, Inc. establishes itself in the printing market as the combined force of two well-respected companies. Only time will tell if Canon and Océ are truly, “stronger together”.

If you want to learn more, you can read the official press release here or read the merger brochure here!

Since the advent of high speed color inkjet presses that approach the quality of offset, printers and data centers have begun struggling with the decision of integrating this new technology into their operation.

The decision to move print volume to high speed inkjet is complex and one that does not always have a clear ROI.  Since inkjet brings new and different ways of thinking about everything, you have to implement the system and related changes into your existing operation.

In small-to-midsize printers, this decision will impact nearly every facet of the organization’s processes, including the markets you pursue, how you estimate and price your product, production flow, quality, materials and warehousing, and personnel skills. In many cases, precise navigation these decisions can determine the very survival of the establishment.

But before you get to any of that, first you have to decide if the move to color or monochrome inkjet printing is right for you.  In some cases, modification of your current printing environment is all that is necessary to keep you competitive.  For instance, if you print offset now and have only long runs and little or no variable printing, switching to inkjet most likely will not provided any benefits.  Your efforts should probably be focused on tuning your current production processes.

If you have some of the factors that often make going to inkjet a decent return on investment, that is, you have short runs, need to print variable data, or are overprinting on preprinted material, actually calculating that ROI can be elusive.  Every business case that I have built has been has been completely unique.  Little of any previous analysis was usable. This is mostly because every shop I worked with has accounted for their usage and cost so differently, and each have their own business processes.  Because of that, a single model to capture all of the possible permutations would be so complex that it would lose its value as a template.

And each shop has a different starting point:  Some are all digital already, leveraging the best of the toner technologies, some are all offset, some print variable information on preprinted shells, some carry finished product and some don’t, and some need to meet incredibly tight SLAs.  Some are sheetfed and some are web shops.

Yes, there are common components that remain the same. This includes all the things you may normally think about:  Skilled prepress, press, and finishing labor; Press maintenance and cost of downtime; Plates chemicals and other consumables costs; Toner and click charges; Paper waste and energy costs.  You need to look at ink, paper cost differences, throughput and uptimes, waste, time to produce, cost of shells, and inventory obsolescence. I like to look at some things that you may not consider, like the efficiency gained by consolidating your longer runs to an offset press (if you use offset) and being able to capture business you could not reach in your current state. And if your customers are somewhat flexible, you can add to the business case by demonstrating the efficiencies that minor changes in format or color might give them a marketing advantage or you a cost advantage.

Although you probably have a great handle on your current costs, capturing which of those costs could be eliminated by inkjet, and most importantly, understanding what your new costs REALLY will be, is even more of a challenge. Often, the use of an outside expert could be a very valuable investment. They can help you understand exactly what your new costs will be as you transition to inkjet, model your production with real world data that will give you uptimes for both the printing and finishing environments, help you select and value the new kind of operator labor, and more.

It should come as no surprise that more and more people are shifting their once offline activities to online activities. This is true for things like shopping, reading newspapers, keeping in touch with friends and family. In fact, you are even reading you are even checking on your industry virtually by reading this online blog. This trend has numerous meanings for the printing industry which affects book printing, magazine printing, creating marketing communications, and… printed bills and statements. Scary stuff for the printing industry! But, is this shift actually as prevalent as we think it is?

According to a massive 2011 InfoTrends study, the shift is taking place slower than anticipated. In fact, only 11% of American consumers receive their bills electronically. While there is a push on the part of billers to move billing and payments online, the vast majority of customers still prefer a printed statement. That is the good news for printers. However, younger generations between the ages of 18-24 seem to have adapted most to online billing and payments, which may suggest that future generations will do the same.

What does this mean for printers? It means that they don’t need to panic yet. But they do need to keep an eye on the future and whether or not this trend of online activity continues to shift. In all likeliness, it will. Unless printers can come up with creative reasons why the printed piece is more powerful. With the increases in variable data printing capabilities, printed statements can act as a personal and impactful touch point with customers that the online experience may not fully provide.  A printed statement can be an opportunity to inform, educate, and promote. This is especially important when considering that, according to InfoTrends, printed statements are still the best way to cut through the clutter of communications.

So don’t give up on the printed statement! Think of it as a challenge to capture emerging generations. Could this be a new resolution for 2013??

I’m getting tired of technology pundits complaining about “slow” QR code adoption.  I just updated my report “QR Codes: What You Need to Know,” and as part of that effort, I scrapped all of the old data and scoured the industry for the most recent data on QR code adoption and use.

In the process, I found some great stuff. I also found some irritating stuff. One of the irritants came from Mashable Business, where QR codes were referred to as being adopted at “a sloth-like pace.

Although the concept is smart, is it worth the effort, especially given the sloth-like pace QR codes have been adopted in the U.S. and other western countries? About 14 million U.S. cellphone owners — about 4.5% of the country’s population — scanned a QR code last month, according to comScore. [1]

Sloth-like pace? That’s funny because I see QR codes everywhere — from electronics to watermelons. It seems that I cannot go a single day without tripping over one, and I’m not out and about much because I seem to live in my home office. The irony is that, before reading that post, I had just written these paragraphs in the QR code report:

In December of 2011, 20% of smartphone users in the United States (which amount to about 42% to 53% of all U.S. mobile phone subscribers depending on whose data you use) had scanned a QR code.  (ComScore MobiLens April 2012)

In addition, Nellymoser found that readers of national magazines scan QR codes, Microsoft Tags, digital watermarks and other mobile action codes at an average rate of 6.4%. This compares to 4.4% for direct mail, according to the Direct Marketing Association. [2]

So depending on which data you use, QR code scanning is either at pace or above that of direct mail response rates overall. That’s not exactly sloth-like.

The other irony is that I clicked through the Mashable author’s link to that data, and while she says “last month,” what she really means is a year and one month ago — her write-up was posted on Mashable in July 2012, but the comScore data she cites is from June 2011. So comparing her June 2011 comScore data to the more recent comScore data, the percentage of consumers who have scanned QR codes has risen from 4.5% of the U.S. population to 20% of smartphone users (or roughly 10% of the U.S. population) in just about a year.

Even going back to the June 2011 numbers, that’s still not a bad percentage. I think people forget that QR codes are just a response mechanism like any other. I haven’t mailed in a BRE or called an 800 number in years. That doesn’t mean those response mechanisms don’t work. They just aren’t the right response mechanisms for me. Or, um, maybe I’m just not interest in the product.

After being eyeball deep in QR and other 2d code data this week, I can assure this Mashable author that, regardless of which year’s data she is using, mobile barcodes are part of the fabric both of marketing and consumer lives.  If readers are scanning them at rates equal to or higher than the average direct mail piece, in my book, that’s pretty darn good.

This post provided by Evan Childs, SourceLink blog contributor. 

When it comes to electronics (the newest gadgets on the market), I definitely put myself in the laggard category for adoption. I’m usually never the first guy on my block to have the newest electronic gadgets. I’m the slow and steady guy who likes to think that I can do without many of these gadgets, as I’ve done for my entire life prior to owning one. So suffice it to say that I was a bit shocked to learn that I’m apparently one of the early adopters for a technology that helps me to understand my energy consumption and make smarter energy choices. I am the proud owner of a Nest®.

I first learned of Nest while attending a utility conference in Dallas, TX. It sounded pretty cool, but why would I need that “thing”? I’ve lived without it all these years, so my programmable thermostat is just fine (I thought to myself). Shortly after returning from that conference, my wife had mentioned that our utility bill seemed to be unnecessarily higher than the past. So we did a little investigation…

Our utility bill provides some useful charts and consumption history detail, so identifying the spike in usage was relatively easy. It was clear that the oppressive and seemingly never-ending heat wave of the summer of 2012 had taken its toll on our wallets, via our utility bill. I swear my AC ran non-stop for a week.

A quick review of our spiking electric usage confirmed that we were using more electricity than any prior month this year, and significantly more than the same period last year. So I bit the proverbial bullet and bought a Nest. If you’re not familiar with this little trinket, it’s a very intelligent thermostat to control your AC and heat. What makes this device simply amazing is the fact that it learns your behaviors. It’s a plug-and-go thermostat that literally helps you to make better energy choices. Nest (somehow) knows when you’re not home.

Nest somehow knows when I walk in the door, as it immediately kicks on my AC unit the split second I enter the house. (Still can’t figure out how it knows when I get home… a little creepy, but very awesome). Not to mention that I can control Nest from my iPad (Screenshot above) and have it prepare for my arrivals or vacations!

Utility companies are under increasing pressure from regulators to reduce grid demand for electricity, particularly in peak season (summer in the North East) when demand is at its highest. This becomes critical to many utility companies when excessive heat strikes a region. Demand must be regulated (or in some cases reduced) to avoid stressing the system and causing a blackout. Reducing the demand can happen by force (the utility has to temporarily shut down select customers for short period of time) or by a more preferred method all around – by the utility’s customers voluntarily reducing their demand by making slight adjustments to their usage behaviors.

Technology has made smarter energy consumption choices much easier than in the past. But beyond the technology that is now available, better billing statements are equally critical to this end result of smarter energy consumption and usage.

Had it not been for the usage history charts on my utility’s billing statements, I would have assumed that the rate increase for peak usage periods was the primary cause of the spike in my bill. Thus, from this consumer’s perspective, smarter bills lead to smarter consumers, which leads to smarter energy choices, which leads to a decrease on the demand for energy during peak energy consumption periods.

My wife and I now enjoy receiving our utility bill and watching as the usage charts decrease from month to month as compared to the same period last year. We especially enjoy watching our bill shrink. It has become somewhat of a game in our household. But for the record, it all started with an easy to read utility statement.

As utility companies evaluate the benefits of statement redesign, and making bills easier to read, I propose that they include reduction in demand as a likely outcome to a bill redesign. Had my bill been an old legacy-system generated bill with no usage charts or valuable consumption visuals, I never would have purchased my Nest and my usage behavior probably never would have changed either.

The technology is amazing. But just as amazing to me how important, effective and easy to understand a utility bill can be in driving customers to make smarter choices.