“In a difficult economy like this marketing budgets are tight. The only projects that get funded are the ones that can prove strong ROI. That’s why you need a way to prove to clients that your solutions will deliver.”

This quote came from a November 18 press release from Caslon & Company promoting a PODi Webinar, “Promoting the Value of Your Solution.” The seminar is designed to promote Caslon & Company’s Value Calculators, a tool for determining ROI projections from 1:1 printing jobs, which I think is a terrific idea.

But the thing that struck me in reading this was the spate of discussions I’ve had recently in which it’s become clear that proving value for a 1:1 printing campaign is the all-important first step, but it’s not enough by itself. Even the most successful 1:1 applications — in which the results are measured and recorded — are often not repeated. This is something that has proven to be extremely frustrating even for the most proactive 1:1 printing / marketing solutions providers.

Recently, I’ve been posting this question in various areas of LinkedIn. Here are some of the interesting and insightful reasons that have been shared with me.

• Clients do not follow up and verify results.

(Which leads to the question: Are printers following up to find out why clients may not be repeating? If it’s a matter of too much time and effort, are these printers letting their customers mistakenly think that repeat applications take the same time commitment as the initial deployment—and if so . . . why?

• Despite the results, the projects just take too long and are too time-consuming. Marketers like the results but just don’t want to put that much work in again.
• The sales cycle is so long that, once a project is completed, the original marketing team or individual at the company who spearheaded the project has moved on and the printer’s salesperson must start from scratch.

And thanks to Peter Wann, industry consultant, for bringing up this very overlooked but critical disconnect in the process:

• Clients may track response rates, but they don’t track conversion rates. If the client isn’t tracking the conversion rate, the results may not be tracking back to the original campaign.

This insight is particularly thought-provoking and may be one of the dark underbellies of the 1:1 (personalized) printing sales process. As with all challenges facing this marketplace, the solutions won’t be simple or easy, but they start with acknowledgement of the problem, followed by frank and open discussion.

Have your insights or experience to share? Comment on this post or log into my profile on LinkedIn and click on the Answers link and share them!

Is digital printing a production technology? Or a marketing strategy? “Digital Printing: Transforming Business and Marketing Models,” part of Heidi Tolliver-Nigro’s Marketer’s Primer Series, argues for the latter. It presents digital production not as technology in the domain of print buyers and production managers but as the foundation of a comprehensive strategy for changing the way marketers look at document management and marketing.

This report is broken down into five sections.

Section 1: What digital printing is, along with its benefits and drawbacks from a marketing perspective. Examines traditional “sticking points,” including binding and finishing and the availability of substrates. How these characteristics drive key marketing applications.

Section 2: A closer look at each of these applications. Each discussion includes a series of short case studies in each of eight marketing classifications that provide key insights into how these applications are used in the real world.

Section 3: New ways of evaluating cost critical to digital printing success, including cost per piece, cost per lead, and ROI. Hypotheticals are used to drive the points home.

Section 4: Five “critical success factors” that enable marketers to take maximum advantage of digital printing technology. Includes key insights into helping marketers choose the right service provider.

Section 5: Final conclusions and additional resources as a next step.

The goal of the report is for marketers to be left with the understanding that the importance of digital printing has nothing to do with the technology—its costs, its output capabilities, or the applications it can produce, although many of them are discussed. It’s about transforming how they think about marketing.

The important thing is not digital printing technology itself, but the way it can be combined with other technologies (particularly databases, email, wireless, and the Internet) to create broader solutions that make a real difference in how business market their products, as well as how they communicate with customers on a short-term and long-term basis and present their brands.

The information is presented both from the perspective of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), as well as large corporate marketers.

Single-user versions of the report can be purchased from the What They Think store, as well as from the Digital Printing Reports website. Licensed versions for internal and external distribution can be purchased from Research and Markets and Market Research, as well as from the Digital Printing Reports website.

“Digital Printing: Transforming Business and Marketing Models” is part of Heidi Tolliver-Nigro’s Marketer’s Primer Series, which also includes “1:1 (Personalized) Printing: Boosting Profits Through Relevance” and “Web-to-Print: Transforming Document Management and Marketing Models.” All three primers are designed both as authoritative primers for marketers and as internal training tools for printers.