Alright, before I let you read this article, please let me state this: I recognize that many readers of the Digital Nirvana generate a lot of their business executing outbound marketing activities for their clients. And if you know me, you know that I believe in a multi-channel approach — one that incorporates traditional marketing channels through outbound efforts as well as newer marketing channels that primarily utilize inbound methods.

Below you will find the latest article in my 5-part series on how inbound marketing can help you — the print services provider — to generate more leads so that you can sell your services, which may include outbound and inbound marketing!

One of the cool things about inbound marketing is that it is inherently less expensive than outbound marketing. Even if you need to hire a ghostwriter to create content, it’s still likely to be leaps and bounds less costly than efforts through other channels. However, that does not mean that content creation is a process that can be skimped on.

Your Content Must Contain Solid, Helpful Tips

If you are going to publish content under your brand’s name, you do need to know your stuff (or your writer does), and you need to take the time to show others that you know your stuff. This is not the time to load your website up with fluff.

The reality is – people are looking for facts. They want answers. They want solutions. They have the power of the internet at their fingertips, whether that is on their computers, their tablets, or their smartphones. Lackluster information becomes obvious and it’s a turn-off.

Do Not Click “Publish” on the First Draft

As you develop content for your website, flesh out your topics.

Break them down into readable chunks. Too long and your reader will start to yawn. Too short and it may just lack substance.

By taking the time to review what you’ve typed up before you share it with the world, you will most likely identify simple changes that can greatly increase the effectiveness of your content.

Talk in a Human Voice About Relevant Topics

Make your content balanced; don’t get swayed by “shop talk” of creating content that is heavy on the keywords.

Yes, keywords are important — but if you overdo it, your content will not read well.

Your information needs to be relevant. It needs to be timely and helpful. You can do this while still getting those keywords in there.

Be Willing to Share Specifics

With inbound marketing, you are in control of how much or how little information you share.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that providing “too much” information is akin to giving away your grandmother’s top secret cake recipe. Sure, you don’t want to give away the whole kit and caboodle of your business, but you want to be transparent.

You want to display your expertise. No customer will decide against doing business with you because you provided “too much” relevant information. But you can bet that many a potential customer is lost to the business that fails to provide adequate and transparent information.

Have a Strategy to Build Links

One of the pluses when you post great information is that it gets linked from other sources. Links are great. They provide yet another way to get internet users to come to your site. They are a subtle referral and nod to your expertise.

So, the more links to your site, the better. In addition, it will help with your search engine rankings, making you more visible in those keyword searches.

Using Content to Generate Sales

Content reigns supreme with inbound marketing, as it helps with search engine optimization and expertise display. When you provide relevant content you are becoming a resource that the reader can rely on. This empowers your reader to make the right decision – to work with you!  Of course, a visitor doesn’t immediately turn into a customer. You need to work that lead first. For five points about inbound marketing and lead generation, go here.

As someone that primarily works with companies in the print, mail, and fulfillment industries, I spend a lot of time at trade shows and conferences that target those groups. Those events provide me with opportunities to network with customers and prospects, but they also help me to stay informed of trends that effect companies in those industries.

However, when it comes to growth, I truly think that it’s very important for all of us to take the time to attend and participate in events that may be outside our normal comfort range. Doing this can open our minds to new ideas and provide inspiration for business growth.

In that vein, I recently sent a couple of our employees to attend the Online Marketing Summit.

I asked them to come back with a few points that could help folks in the print, mail, and fulfillment industries. Whether it was trends that they thought were important, or sales ideas for selling marketing solutions, I asked them to keep their ears and eyes open. Here is what they found:

Marketers Are Starting To Become Overwhelmed With Data

Yes, it is a multi-channel world. As new channels have emerged, many marketers have dove right in!

This might include social media. Personalized URLs. QR Codes. Web Registration forms. Mobile websites. Email. And more…

However, this has put some marketers in a situation where they now have their data in multiple silos. They have varying records for their customers and prospects in multiple systems and databases that have conflicting data. They are losing time and sales opportunities as they struggle trying to analyze, merge, and streamline the data that’s available to them.

At the conference, many presenters pointed to the fact that marketers need to find ways to take an “integrated marketing” approach to their efforts.

I believe that this presents a tremendous opportunity to service providers. In many cases, printers and mailers have years of experience working with a customer’s data. Also, technology has made it possible for service providers to offer solutions that touch multiple channels in just one solution.

Because of that, I think that service providers can develop new business by demonstrating how they can help to solve their customer’s challenges in regards to silos, multiple databases, and a lack of integration.

Mobile is Red-Hot

There is no doubt that mobile is one of the hottest items in the world of marketing today.

Marketers know that they need to use that channel to communicate with their target audience, but it was quite clear at the Online Marketing Summit that many of them are unsure of how to do that.

Thus, I believe that the opportunity to present integrated solutions that incorporate mobile is a great one for service providers. This may include projects that integrate print and mobile with QR Codes. It could mean mobile website creation and hosting. It also could even mean tasks such as setting up SMS/Text-message alerts for a client.

Mobile is hot, and it is moving fast. Because of that, there is money to be made!

Relevance and ROI Still Make Them Happy

Yes, many of the attendees at the Online Marketing Summit became quite excited when they talked about “new” things. This included the latest social networks — Google+ and Pinterest, anyone? —, smartphones and tablets, and terms such as content marketing.

But in the end, they all recognize one thing — in order to truly be a successful marketer, they need to develop and deliver relevant messaging, and they need to provide and prove that their efforts are producing a good Return on Investment.

Those two marketing fundamentals will never get old and they will never go out of style.

So, if you are a service provider that is looking to sell marketing solutions to your clients, do not shy away from what you can do for them to reach those two goals!

The solution that you provide might include traditional channels that are not as sexy as what’s new. But if it can help a marketer to achieve their overall business objectives, then you are in a great position to help them succeed.

Valentine’s Day was a big event at our office this year. The door bell rang with deliveries of flowers at seemingly every other hour. The lunch room was filled with boxes of heart-shaped cookies. A few of the employees even wore bright red clothing to commemorate the occasion.

And yet, seeing all of these things caused me to think about marketing!

Specifically, I started to think about all of the things that people do improve their relationships, especially when they are married. And while that certainly is very important (if my wife is reading this, let me say “Honey, I love you!”), I also think that there are lessons marketers can take from those marriage tips to help them grow their business.

Making the Connection: Marriage and Marketing

Just because you are married, it doesn’t mean that you shut down and think that you set the dial at “coast.” You still need to stay on top of your relationship, work on it, build on it. Because you want your relationship to be the best it possibly can.

Building a relationship with a prospect should be looked at the same way. We should never just rest on our laurels or set the dial to “coast.” We need to keep things fresh and interesting. We need to let our prospects know we are here for the long haul.

Here are some ways you can translate suggestions made to better your marriage and use them to enrich your marketing:

• Honesty is the best policy. Be 100% honest with your prospects.
• Just as you should be honest, you should also respect your prospects. Respect their time. Respect their interests. Respect their feedback.
• Be supportive. Let your prospects know that you are there for them. You don’t want to appear to be all about the deal and then you’re gone. And you don’t want to appear like you don’t care.
• Share the good times and the bad times with your prospects. Every marketing message doesn’t have to be a happy-go-lucky story or catchy tagline. If you present yourself as “human” and less of a faceless corporate entity, you will find your prospects feel more emotionally attached.
• Determine any issues or problems your prospects face and then try to solve them. Just like burying your head in the sand at home, if you ignore problems with your prospects, they won’t go away. In fact, they will get bigger. So tackle issues head on and communicate!
• Listen to your prospects. Really listen. And then let them know you are listening by responding in a personal fashion.
• Remember that prospects have bad days too. Don’t let that bad day set back your relationship. Be willing to forgive and move on.
• Have a regular “date” when you contact your prospects to check up on them and see how things are going. Of course, don’t hesitate to make that “date” in person when you can. A cup of coffee or a lunch goes a long way in making a relationship grow stronger.
• Have a good memory. Remember the anniversaries and the birthdays and acknowledge them. Make your prospects feel special.
• Surprise your prospects with little things here and there. Discounts, specials, resource materials, etc. Think up ways you can give your prospects a little “pick me up” that will make them fall in love with your business.

I hope that you find these tips helpful!

Of course, there are certainly many other common marriage tips that could be applied to a marketing lesson. If you have one on your mind, I’d love to hear it! Please feel free to share it in the Comments section.

When Google+ was first released in 2011, there certainly was a lot of buzz in the marketing world.  However, for many of us, the reaction was this: “Oh no; do we really have another social network to worry about?”

Well, if you have been neglecting adding Google+ to your marketing activities up until now, you may want to re-think that approach! Here’s why.

Search Plus Social

Last week, Google announced that they were going to make some fairly significant changes to their search engine. They labeled these changes “Search, plus Your World”. These enhancements would dramatically change the search results that were presented to logged-in users. The results presented to people would now greatly incorporate the social networking data that a person is connected to — at least the social networking data that Google had access to.

Users would notice this difference throughout the links, images, and videos that were presented by Google’s search engine. Yes, what a person saw two weeks ago as the #1 result when they searched for “printing services” could now be radically different, based on their social network connections.

Since Google only has access to the data within so many social networks, Google+ is playing a major role in the changes that they’ve made to their search engine.

This has caused a number of debates to arise as to whether their actions are fair and justified. But for people like us — those that are looking to do whatever we can to grow our business — we must react to the reality.

And the reality is this: If we want people to find our business online, we need to be on Google+!

How to Get Started with Google+

Google started rolling out these changes to users last week. Thus, chances are very good that you have access to them.

Below are a few things that you can do now to take take advantage of these enhancements:

• If you don’t already have one, create a Google Profile.
• Once you have a profile, make sure that you log-in to Google before you run your next Search.
• Get on Google+! It’s free to create an account.
• Google+ allows you to have a personal profile, of course. But you can also create Pages for your Business, Products & Services, Events, and more.
• Start creating and publishing content on your Google+ profiles and pages
• Build your Google+ community: Take the time to add people and Pages to your Circles and invite others to do the same for your accounts.

It certainly will be interesting to see how companies adapt and benefit from these changes.

Once you’re logged in to your Google profile, start running a few searches. It can be quite fascinating to see how the “Personal Results” change what is presented to you.

If you have a free moment, check out the video that Google has released regarding the “Search, plus Your World” functionality below. I think it does a great job of demonstrating the importance of using Google+ in one’s marketing efforts.

P.S. These changes have absolutely motivated me to increase my personal Google+ usage. Feel free to “Circle” me there!

Recently, I had the chance to spend some time at the DMA 2011 conference in Boston. While I absolutely enjoyed my time at Graph Expo, I was excited to attend a show that primarily consisted of marketing agencies and in-house marketers. I was looking forward to seeing what topics were trending, what challenges were being hotly discussed, and what technologies and channels were being debated.

It’s certainly very important for all of us that are associated to the printing industry to understand what marketers are thinking and talking about. Thus, I’d like to share some of my observations from DMA 2011. I hope that you find them helpful!

1. Marketers are absolutely in need of integrated solutions:

One theme that seemed to exist in many of the conference sessions was the need to break down silos and to integrate marketing efforts. As more and more marketers move to reach their customers and prospects through multiple channels, many of them have fallen into the trouble of storing and managing multiple databases. Those databases might store conflicting or simply varying bits of information about their contacts. This harms a marketer’s need to try to communicate with their audience in real-time. It also prevents a marketer from truly delivering one-to-one and relevant messages.

Thus, service providers (especially those that are committed to offering marketing services through multiple channels as opposed to only print, mail, or fulfillment) have a tremendous opportunity to promote and offer solutions of that nature to their customers to help them solve those challenges.

2. The Primary Discussion was Digital — But Print Still Has a Place in the Marketing Mix!:

I won’t lie – many of the discussions at DMA 2011 centered around online marketing and other digital marketing initiatives. But there were still a number of great case studies shared that involved print and direct mail components. Some of the main reasons why I heard marketers share why they still chose print as a channel included:

• It is tangible.
• It can be personalized.
• It can create a deeper emotional impact.
• It can be a very effective way to drive people to online content.

3. When it comes to social networks, businesses have a lot to learn:

Judging by the attendance of various sessions, many companies are still striving to learn how to effectively use social networks in the B-to-B space. Here were a few of the tips that I heard that I’d like to share:

• Twitter’s search features can be one of the most powerful websites for companies to utilize. It enables us to really listen to what’s on the minds of customers and prospects.
• Facebook’s dominance in the social networking space is truly astounding — thus, we most likely all need to invest more resources there. They have 800 million users! Nearly half of them log in each day.  30 billion pieces of content are shared there each month! Those numbers clearly dwarf the activity that other social networks can share. With that much volume, it’s certain that some of the content being shared and discussed has to do with companies and products. In order to capitalize on the opportunities there, business of all shapes and sizes must be on Facebook too.
• People love video. It’s true. Video is being used more and more by marketing agencies and other companies to tell their stories. I truly think that many service providers can utilize video to do the same thing

4. Mobile and QR Codes Were Huge… and Growing:

There were a ton of QR Codes at the conference. They were on posters, signs, collateral, and clothes. While that is a good sign to me when it comes to printing, I also noticed that most of the QR Codes were not used 100% properly.

• Primarily, most of them seemed to point to non-mobile websites. I truly think that there is a tremendous opportunity for service providers to grow their business by doing more than just providing or printing the QR Code; but rather, to also offer the building and hosting of the mobile website or mobile landing page.

Google+ has only been with us for a short time. But within its first month, most reports state that more than 25 million people joined the service. What makes that fairly impressive is that the service was still only in invitational-only mode. However, Google has recently announced that the social network is now open to everyone. Thus, the question is this – should printers care about Google +?

At Graph Expo, a lot of people said this to me: “I’m already overwhelmed with Facebook and Twitter. I just can’t deal with another social network now.” And trust me, I understand what you’re saying. Personally, I have not yet Google+ as much as I should. But fortunately, I have some employees that have been fairly regular users.

Should printers care about this social network? I think so. Here are five reasons why I think they should take action on it now:

1. It has Staying Power

While Google may have fallen short of their goals with their previous ventures into the social networking space, all indicators are pointing to the fact that Google+ is here to stay.

It has some tremendous features that users are already fawning over — whether it’s the ability to drag-and-drop people into your Circles, the easy way to share a variety of content, or the search options for finding people who you’re interested in connecting with, Google+ appears to have the necessary tools to steal some attention and web-browsing time from Facebook.

2. Marketers Are There!

As with many “new” things in the world of marketing, the first group of folks to rush there are (ta-da!) marketers. And guess what? Marketers need to buy print. Okay, maybe they don’t know they need to buy print. But they need ROI. And often, ROI comes from direct mail pieces, newsletters, business cards, flyers, and other materials that will help them drive awareness and leads to their company.

By hopping onto Google+ sooner than everyone else, printers have a great opportunity to meet and develop relationships with marketers that could potentially become customers.

3. SEO

Everyone cares about their search engine rankings. And while Bing may be growing, Google is still the number one search engine in the world.

If you are wondering whether Google includes public content and profiles from Google+ within their search rankings, the answer is absolutely yes. Thus, printers can find ways to increase the effectiveness of their SEO efforts by creating profile pages for staff (and soon their business) and by sharing compelling content for public consumption.

4. Walk the Walk

Many printers are now looking to grow their business by offering marketing services and solutions that go beyond producing print. This might include QR Codes, personalized URLs, email, landing pages, web design, SMS/Text, and more.

It’s one thing to talk about other marketing channels. But it’s certainly more important to be using them yourself. By getting acquainted with Google+ now, it will open up additional conversations between printers and the marketing departments that they are trying to sell to.

5. Online Community Features

From everything I’ve seen, the majority of printers out there love helping each other. Whether it’s a trade show or conference, an email Listserv, or a LinkedIn group, many printers are willing to share information to help each other.

Google+ contains a number of features that will help people to engage with others both via video and text chat. I absolutely think that those features will bring benefits to businesses that find ways to put them to use. Along with peer discussions, I think that Google+ tools such as Huddle and Hangout might be great for project collaboration and customer service.

Moving Forward

I know that there will absolutely be some skeptics on Google+ being just “another social network”.

But from everything I’ve seen so far, I truly think that printers (and many other types of companies) will find business opportunities by utilizing Google+ sooner than later.

One of the major challenges faced by a printer that wants to offer marketing services involves changing their sales strategies and tactics.  There really is a big transition from commodity-based sales to solution sales. In my book Business Tranformation: A New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry, you will not find a how-to-guide on how to sell. Rather, you will find a chapter that focuses on the changes that you may need to make to your sales process.

Identifying Other Opportunities

One of the biggest changes will involve taking the time to investigate what other sales opportunities may be available. Let’s think of the the example of a seminar.

A seminar requires promotional planning, production, and follow-up. Registering attendees, mail and email notifications, collection of registration fees via e-commerce, creating informational items, and much more, are all a part of putting on an event of this sort. In the past, your business may have only received a small portion of the work involved in those items; perhaps you were printing the postcards that invited people to the seminar. But as a marketing services provider, you will absolutely want to find ways to get more of that business.

How can you go about doing this? One thing that may help is to simply ask more questions. Find out how the company plans to promote their seminar besides the printed piece that you are doing. Also, share tips and advice with them to position yourself as a partner. Suggest that they can improve the success of their registration efforts with personalized URLs or QR Codes. Share statistics that demonstrate the lift some campaigns get by including emails and social networks in their promotions. Then, find ways to demonstrate how you can help them with those items too.

Formalize Your Sales Process

If your company has had the same sales reps for many years, there may be some folks that are used to doing the majority of their work on their own. However, the transformation into a marketing services provider requires a team approach.

To get everyone on board, you may need to put forth efforts to standardize your sales process, to hold weekly meetings to share ideas, problems, concerns, and successes, and to develop that tools that will help people forecast sales opportunities.

Find Ways to Automate!

Next, let’s look at sales force automation. SFA records all of the stages in a sales process. It also allows you to track all of your contacts. SFA systems are also capable of sales lead tracking systems, sales forecasting, order management and product knowledge. This creates a streamlined, productive environment for your sales reps.

This is not limited to your sales reps, however. Your marketing department will also benefit from SFA. As your customer database grows, your marketing department can do a few things with this. For example, they may be able to identify who your most profitable customers are. There are obvious benefits to this. This will enable them create a market of similar companies to target.

Also, SFA will help in understanding the competition. Any lost sales opportunities should be documented in the system. Marketers can examine trends and cycles among sales reps and help develop a stronger competitive strategy. Also, this helps marketers and sales reps work in tandem. If you are conducting a self-promotional campaign, that information should be included in the SFA system, including who was contacted and what their responses were.

There is also marketing automation. This allows you to send out consistent and relevant messages efficiently. Marketing automation enables you to automate marketing functions, including campaign creation, market segmentation, and response analysis. Simply the gathering of data that can be used to target your audience in a valued way.

Technology is your friend. Use it to make your sales and marketing processes more efficient and effective. You will see results.

Next week, we will look at social media, and where it fits in with your new business.

To learn more about my book, “Business Transformation: A New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry”, visit  my book’s website.

Note: This is Part 7 of a 9-Part series based on the book “Business Transformation: A New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry”

Transforming from a printing company printer into a marketing service provider certainly may require a lot of internal work. But once those steps have been completed, a crucial step in the process is to let the world know about the new services that you can offer.

How will you promote your new business? It is important that you don’t abandon the tried and true marketing methods that you have always fallen back on. However, it is just as important that you are willing to embrace new technologies and strategies that you may not have utilized in the past.

In chapter 6 of my book Business Transformation: A New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry, I constructed a list of questions related to key marketing efforts that may help.

# 1 – Your Website

Do you have a website? Many of you will say “yes” to this question… but it doesn’t end there. Does your website represent your marketing services provider business in the best way possible? Is it interactive, engaging, and frequently updated? Heck, is it ugly?

It may be worth investing in resources to ensure that “working on the company website” is high on your company’s priority list. Don’t run the risk of your website being lost in the shuffle.

#2 – Your Blog

Are you wondering why company would want a blog? Here are a few reasons: A blog drives traffic to your site, encourages visitors to keep coming back, and it also increases Search Engine Optimization.

#3 -  Sales Collateral and Lead-Generation Forms

When transforming into a marketing services provider, it’s important to update your sales collateral to reflect the appropriate messaging and branding. Once this is done, incorporate downloadable versions of that information on your website. People are always researching and looking for tips and facts when looking at businesses. Studies have shown that about 70% of people use a company website to research a product or service before they make a decision. Thus, do not be shy about re-purposing information from your brochures and slicks onto your website.

Of course, you don’t need to give it all away for a free! Put up lead generation forms that require interested parties to give you some bits of data (perhaps their email address) before they can download certain pieces of collateral.

# 4 – Online Video

Do you have any video or audio on your site? If not, you absolutely should. Quick videos are great ways to disseminate important information, and it is a nice change up from the written word.

Speaking of video, do you have a YouTube channel? Keep all of your videos in one place, and embed them on your website.

We all want people to find us on Google, right? Well do not forget that Google owns YouTube… and YouTube videos often rank high in search engine results. So, get the camera rolling!

#5 – Social Networks

Now that we’ve mentioned YouTube, we have to discuss the rest other social networks; namely Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. All of these are very important to keep in mind when you are crafting your online marketing plan. Build your networks, connect with professionals and potential clients, and involve your company in pertinent conversations about your industry. You can do all of these things in social media. Just like your website, make sure you have a strategy in place when you are setting these networks up. Do not let them fall by the wayside. Consistency is the key to a successful social media campaign.

What else can you do?

There are other ways to promote your news services as well. You should use email marketing to reach your audience.. You should aggressively create and launch direct marketing campaigns, including direct mail (of course!), print advertisements, radio ads or television ads. Don’t forget to create personalized URLs or QR codes to get the attention of your audience when appropriate.

And there is also mobile marketing. Create a mobile website for your company that can be viewed by the rapidly expanding audience of people carrying smartphones everywhere they go .

I hope that these ideas help you to promote the many services that you can now offer customers and prospect.

Next week, I will give you a guide to help your sales team sell marketing services.

To learn more about my book, “Business Transformation: A New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry”, visit  my book’s website.

No matter how you dress it up, a printer is a printer. Most printers would say that it is their price and customer service that will set them apart. If everyone has the same recipe for setting themselves apart, how much difference is there?

Becoming a marketing services provider takes some time, and there are some non-negotiable steps along the way to make the transformation complete. First, it is necessary for the online presence of the printer to be inviting, friendly, easy to use, interactive, and functional. The ability for your customers to order online is an important facet of the printer’s transformation. Customers should be able to upload mailing lists using the printer as an email service provider. They should also be able to access and download information to be distributed or printed in small quantities.

But having an online store does not automatically make you a marketing services provider. The printer has to examine cross-media marketing. As I state in the book, cross-media marketing is, “a form of cross-promotion in which promotional companies commit to surpassing the traditional advertisements and decide to include extra appeals for their offered products. The material can be communicated by any type of mass media such as e-mails, letters, web pages, or other recruiting sources.”

So you have become cross-promotional and web-friendly. Now you need to execute some campaigns. You are looking to drive traffic to a retail store, whether that store is brick and mortar or digital, and increase sales. There are steps that can be taken to ensure a successful campaign. Create postcards with personalized URL’s or QR codes to attract the attention of potential customers. 80% of all printed material ends up in the mail, and who knows how much of that immediately ends up in the trash. So personalizing gives your efforts a much higher chance to be received than a standardized mailer. Once the recipient accesses the URL, have them confirm some information to expand and provide accuracy to your database. Then drive them to either take a survey or claim their special offer that you advertised on the mailer. After a couple weeks, follow up with non-responders. When customers do come into the store in response to a direct marketing campaign, track that information to measure the effectiveness. If it’s not effective, go back to the drawing board. This should hopefully all lead to increased profits, data on marketing campaign strategies, and customer contact information. All of this lends itself to one of the most important ideas in marketing: return on investment (ROI).

Data is everything. Make sure you aggregate a solid database to help you in your marketing efforts. The best database is one you create yourself. The most relevant information to your business is only known by your business. A list provider can only be so specific to your target audience.

One more big aspect of this chapter is about making print interactive. I mentioned QR codes earlier; they are the best way to integrate new media into your printed efforts. They are two-dimensional barcodes that can be scanned by a smartphone, such as an iPhone or Android. Once scanned, they bring the user to a mobile website or landing page, creating an interactive experience for the customer. This mobile page will be stored in the phone for additional access later on, which means the proper information that you want read will be in the palm of the target audience’s hand.

The groundwork is being laid for the printer to become a full-fledged marketing services provider. In the next installment, we will talk about getting down to fundamentals to really complete the transformation.

To learn more about my book, “Business Transformation: A New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry”, visit my book’s website.

Over the past year or two, I’ve had the impression that the term “TransPromo” is perceived outside the printing industry as being very print-centric. I have this impression because that’s what people outside of the industry that I speak with about TransPromo tell me. Perhaps because the terminology was so talked up in our own industry that the perception is warranted, although as an analyst that’s covered this area to a certain degree, I’ve always tried to emphasize that TransPromo isn’t just about print. Leveraging transactional data to drive the delivery of targeted, relevant messaging can be executed for multiple output channels to varying degrees of application and immediacy.

Whether or not the “TransPromo” term sticks around is not really of my concern; what I can say with great confidence is that it’s happening today, especially in the electronic/digital world, and it’s only going to grow over time. Why? There have been a number of recent developments and announcements that highlight how transactional data is being analyzed and utilized to drive highly-targeted and relevant messaging, with many signs pointing to increased investment in this area in the near future:

• A number of companies are either starting up or creating new offerings that enable real-time digital transaction- and behavior-based marketing. Cardlytics is a provider of inline targeted advertising for financial institutions and currently partners with the likes of Fiserv and others to deliver coupons, rewards, and ads to recipients. CLOVR Media promotes a similar offering that it calls “Card Linked Offers”, which are tied in with financial institutions’ loyalty programs. Cartera provides eCommerce solutions to industries that have loyalty programs and is also getting in the game with analytics-driven digital marketing and offer management services.
• Online consolidator services that help consumers aggregate their online financial accounts and provide tools for tracking and budgeting (e.g., Mint.com, Pageonce, etc.) are becoming more popular due to ease-of-use and value delivered. These offerings have access to thousands of peoples’ consolidated transaction information and the companies that run them are using this data to deliver targeted, relevant messaging, marketing, and advertising to users.
• Last week, Google announced its foray into the world of mobile payments with “Wallet”, a service that leverages up-and-coming Near-Field Communications (NFC) technology embedded in smartphones to enable “contactless” point-of-sale payments at retail merchants. What does this mean for Google? The ability to access, mine, and analyze your transaction data virtually in real-time, enabling them to deliver targeted, relevant marketing and advertising, including coupons, loyalty reward points, and more. It’s highly likely that Google will implement a marketplace where advertisers of all sizes conduct real-time ad buys to instantly reach users.

Many of these developments are happening strictly on the digital technology side, but I still consider the application to be of the transpromotional variety. Furthermore, I believe that these developments, despite being digitally-focused, will ultimately bode well for print communications. Many of the issues that have plagued the push toward achieving TransPromo for print communications, including organizational alignment and technology infrastructure, may receive a thrust toward resolution with the new era of real-time transaction-based messaging, marketing, and advertising being touted by the likes of Cardlytics, Google, and others.

There’s a wealth of information that can be gleaned from this type of data, and if pure-play digital tech innovation is the catalyst for increased use and awareness across all channels, I’d say that’s step in the right direction.

It’s no secret that marketing departments are savvy when it comes to direct mail. It’s a channel they’ve traditionally owned. They routinely work with vendors – whether it’s a direct mail house or commercial printshop – who provide access to sophisticated tools for conceiving, creating, composing, personalizing, mail-merging, printing and delivering mail pieces to a designated set of recipients and then measuring campaign effectiveness. For direct mail, they have plenty of tools for interacting with the process, from uploading artwork and providing lists to measuring response rates.

However, when it comes to bills, statements, policies and other production print output, many marketers find it more difficult to navigate the terrain (if they even consider stepping onto it in the first place.)

Why do I think marketers are less engaged with production print?

For starters, there’s the cultural dimension: IT and Operations versus Marketing. Historically production print has been the domain of the technology, operations or billing department, a silo neatly tucked away from creative and marketing types. As a result, many marketing execs simply didn’t consider transactional documents as vehicles for their messages. As awareness grows, marketing teams and even CMOs are starting to recognize the value of the transpromo opportunity. This is especially true as they face mounting pressure to deliver more accountability and better results at a lower cost. However, because they’re new to the game, they may be unsure of what executing a transpromo campaign entails, or how to engage with their traditional rivals in IT.

If you’re a print services provider, this is a golden opportunity.

Maybe you’re already providing direct mail or transactional print services for a particular client. You’ve got a new way to add more business and generate new revenue streams if you can help Marketing bridge the gap with IT. Start by helping marketers understand the potential of adding the statement into the marketing mix. Demonstrate the effectiveness of delivering targeted messages to recipients who are highly likely to spend time with the document. Point out the economies of embedding messages in documents that are delivered in an envelope where the stamp is already paid for. Keep in mind that you also have to win over their IT and operations folks who will be concerned about production cycles, data integrity and the ability to test. These guys want to know that a marketer is not going to be sticking their fingers in the code the day before (or even the week before) production.

Once you’ve convinced Marketing and IT that you have the skills, processes and tools to help them “do transpromo” in a quality controlled and measurable environment, help them foster dialogues with other departments and stakeholders. This might entail determining who maintains the library of messages and conditional business rules that define their use. Finally, provide access to tools that make it as easy to manage content for transaction documents as it is for direct mail – and make sure to measure results. In many cases, the very tools that enable marketers to interact with their suppliers for direct mail campaigns can be adapted for the transpromo world.

In a nutshell, educate them, make the appropriate tools available, facilitate the process and help marketers track results and ROI. It’s a consultative sell – but well worth the effort if it cements your relationship with existing customers or helps to bring you new ones.

Printers!  Have you thought about adding interactive QR Codes to your printed pieces?  If you are, then are your QR Codes leading to mobilized content?  By this I mean content that provides your audience with a pleasant experience of mobile accessible, easy-to-read content with photos, links and more.  If not, you should consider using a Mobile Content Management System.  These specific types of systems allow you to generate content that is made to be used on a mobile device:  from your website, to your personalized ID card, coupons, ads, and blogs.  The mobile user expects a mobile experience.  If you’re driving folks to a regular web page or a coupon that was made for a regular web page, it’s probably too big to use or view. So don’t blame the QR code – blame the (non-mobile) content.

If you want to use QR Codes on your printed pieces for a marketing campaign, or even customer service applications, think about how your landing pages may look on a mobile phone. Have you ever encountered a landing page that is too big so that you have to scroll around to see the page? What a pain.  That is a big fail in my mind.  Most people won’t put up with it, and will leave before getting through the whole page.   A too-big Personalized Landing Page (PLP) that gets displayed on a mobile phone?  Fail – The mobile user will leave faster than they clicked on it. You went to the trouble of creating a PLP, so why not make it compatible for viewing on a mobile platform?

Also, when you drive folks to non-mobilized content, you can’t take advantage of the capabilities smart phones have inherently built into them, like texting from the page you are on, or sharing the content instantly.   Think about those missed opportunities the next time you create a direct mail or printed marketing campaign.

Mobile Marketing is here and is expanding hard and fast.  If you want to engage with your mobile audience the right way, you must mobilize your content.  If you are producing marketing materials that direct people to a web page, and there is even a chance that your audience will be viewing them on a mobile device (and trust me, they will be), you need to make sure that your content is optimized for the mobile web.

So how do you do that? Here are some tips:

• Provide minimal and very clear navigation at the top of the page, and make sure navigation is consistent throughout the site.
• Try not to use sidebar navigation, and make sure that font size is large enough to be legible on a small screen.
• Don’t use more links unless they are absolutely necessary. You need to take into account the trade-off between having too many links on a page and asking the user to follow too many links to find the content they are looking for.
• Use clear and simple language. Save long descriptions and blocks of text for secondary web pages, don’t put them on your home page.
• Try to limit scrolling to one direction if at all possible.
• Make sure you test your content on different mobile platforms so you know that it will work when viewed on an iPhone, Android, Blackberry, or other operating system.
• NEVER use popups. Nobody likes them on regular websites, and they are even worse on a mobile device, IF your visitor can even see them.
• Make sure your site will load quickly, and works well with the memory limitations of a mobile device.

If you take the time to customize your content for mobile devices, you will get a better customer response from your campaign, and customers will be more likely to come back to your site. Mobile is the direction the web is headed – get there now!

Bare Deal likes to describe its coupon service as “Groupon meets Netflix.” Its founders are a couple of Northwestern grads who mail (yes, mail) coupons to consumers who’ve asked for them, requiring payment only when consumers use the coupons.

Bare Deal co-founder, Glen Andrianov, explains through an example. ”This week, we are  featuring the company, Chocolate for Your Body. Anybody who signed up for Bare Deal is able to select this specific deal on our website. A scratch off-card for Chocolate for Your Body is then sent to the person’s mailing address.”

Put another way, this is the process:

• The consumer hears about the service via Twitter, Facebook, word of mouth, or opt-in email and goes to the Bare Deal website, and “signs up.”
• The consumer who wants to explore a deal, registers for that deal.
• Bare Deal digitally prints and mails the consumer a scratch-off coupon featuring a 40- to 100-percent discount, branded with the business’ info.
• When ready, the consumer takes that coupon to the business and redeems it.

Because the recipient asked for the coupon, the open-rate is high. But there’s another – some might say better – reason to open that envelope immediately. Consumers don’t know precisely how big their discounts will be until they scratch-off in the privacy of their home. The discount could be a healthy 40%, or the discount could range up to 100%.

Andrianov says consumers have fun with the coupons. “Instead of a product focused only on savings (Groupon and competitors), our scratch cards provide variable savings, which create excitement – consumers are ‘winning’ a discount.”

Couponing is huge in the Windy City (as this Chicago Tribune article notes) so there’s plenty of competition. But coupons enjoy impressive marketing acceptance, too. So how does Bare Deal differentiate and market its coupons? Andrianov says the company set out to create a service people would love and drives traffic to the website mainly through word of mouth and social media (Facebook and Twitter). “Also, members pay businesses directly, which helps foster loyalty between consumer and their business.”

Lynford Morton, owner of PhotoTour DC, a company that teaches photography on walking tours around Washington, DC, would concur that business access to consumers is critical, but also missing in most coupon arrangements. Morton, who has a lot of experience with coupon marketers, says, “I get pitched by these coupon companies all the time. They all claim some novel differentiator…which really turns out to be yawn-inducing. Every now and then I get a couple smart ones who want to talk to me about where my pain points might be with the daily deals of the world and how they might address them. Others bring me solutions to problems I don’t have. If I understand the Bare Deal approach correctly, this business solves one huge problem by letting you communicate with your customers. To know 600 people bought your product, but you can’t communicate with any of them is nuts. Giving a business owner direct access is huge.”

Andrianov agrees. “Businesses prefer us over competitors because they are able to put their brand identity on a physical product, compared to a black-and-white printed piece of paper with no brand identity.”

Customers must love the pay-as-you-go arrangement, too? I mean who doesn’t have at least a few coupons already paid for, but unredeemed sitting in a folder somewhere? Guilt! Angst! Pressure! Ah… relief!

The delivery of branded, redeemable scratch-offs can happen only one way: via direct mail. “Because we provide a physical product that can’t be printed on a computer, we use direct mail .. This process allows us to send scratch cards only to members who are interested in a specific deal … If a member does not select a deal, they will not receive anything in the mail.”  

In short, Bare Deal’s innovative merger of a pay-when-you-use-it-only coupon with the thrill of a strike-it-rich scratch-off should add up to a model with promise.

As Netflix already proved, the U.S. mail has its advantages. In fact, some people would argue that the U.S. Postal Service made Netflix successful. So, yes, it’s good to see smart marketers still working the direct mail angle.

I received a press release from Pitch PR touting a Chicago-area company that’s got “a new way for business to market their services electronically/paper-free.”

For $199 a year, Pitch says a business can go green, go mobile, and “stay in touch.” It can create “electronic brochures, flyers, messages, schedules, electronic business cards, and more.”

I checked it out. The enterprise is “a property of” a real estate investment company which specializes in lease-to-own real estate and also appears to be affiliated with a now-defunct appraisal company.

In 2011, promises will be coming out of the woodwork to “help” businesses get green, mobile, and marketed. For serious marketers, this can only underscore the value of experience.

For one thing, eco-conscious direct marketers are already stomping the carbon footprint. Meanwhile, “paperless” is by no means a sure sell. Both consumers and the government are increasingly suspicious of “greenwashers,” so the pros are keeping it real.

Mobile marketing remains tricky. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse says smart phone users are leery of marketing outreach to their devices and lawsuits are on the rise.

And then there’s direct mail. According to The DMA and other industry observers, in 2010 direct mail advanced as a trusted marketing medium.

That’s why, for now and in the foreseeable future, direct mail — along with all other serious opt-in direct marketing — will be the best channel standing.

By leveraging current technology, marketers can use print as a way to create a dialogue in B2C communications. Send an email, then a targeted print piece with a PURL, a microsite or QR code to increase points of contact and gather more information about the customer’s interests. In doing this, they’re saying goodbye to the old-school “spray and pray” direct mail methodology and choosing to spend more on the piece to ensure its visibility and return on investment. So what does folding have to do with it? Successful direct mail involves the alignment of several variables, and choice of folding style is one of these variables, however so is color palette, text and imagery, paper choice, layout, format and even schedule. Below is a list of questions addressing machinability for direct mail. I’ll be posting in the future about envelope choice, tips, tricks and techniques to help you get the most out of your DM investment.

Is one fold better than another at getting the most into a standard letter envelope?

Not really. There are always different configurations for folding paper that can get a very large amount of information into a compact size. When designing for folded materials, what is most important is to focus on the organization and reveal of the content so that it does not confuse the recipient, and the placement of critical marketing messages. I always suggest that you mock up your layout and hand it to a few people to make sure the message is properly communicated. If your small test group doesn’t get it, your mailing audience won’t get it, either, and you should rework your layout and test again.

What are the most effective machinable folds for direct mail?

The key to successful machine production for direct mail is closed edges. Perfect example – the accordion fold is notoriously problematic for both self-mailing and for auto-inserting. The trouble is caused by the format—accordions don’t have a closed edge. The open sides make it very difficult, if not impossible, to auto insert, and if it’s self-mailing it’ll need four tabs to seal both sides. Expensive and unattractive. However, if you choose a wrapped accordion (see illustration), you get the accordion experience you’re looking for with its pull-out panels, but you also get a closed edge, which changes the tab requirement and offers a closed edge for inserting. So, sometimes you can get what you want with a little creativity.

How important is machinability for direct mail?

I’ll answer a question with a question: How important is it that you don’t throw money away? I see it all the time—a really great design built in a format that instantly adds a .20 per piece non-machinable surcharge to the mailing budget. Why???? I have samples in my collection that miss USPS aspect ratio by 1/8 inch. It’s silly. What a mindless and costly mistake. In my opinion, there are two things to consider when talking about machine production—machinability of the fold and machinability for mailing. Unless you don’t care at all about the budget, ideally, you should aim for a maximum of one of the two options, but never both. For example, if you’re printing a fairly short run, you may choose a unique folding style that has to be hand folded, but you should try to produce it in a format that is within USPS aspect ratio. Or, similar scenario, design a machinable fold in a square format if you must, however, your most efficient solution will always be machinable fold in a machinable mail format.

Editors Note:  You can find more ideas from Trish at the foldfactory 3-D sample library and watch short videos of hundreds of folding ideas that will be sure to add some variety to the everyday.