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. 

Who knew it would ever be possible to share a plethora of informational content, upload photos, alert every Facebook and Twitter friend where you are and tweet about what is on your mind- all within seconds just by using a phone? Today, technology is excelling at pushing the possibilities of what smart phones can do in terms of how people communicate, promote events and places, and share whatever it is they want to post to the world. Because of all of these amazing abilities a cell phone now has, not becoming a user of social media would be foolish.

Social media on a phone has become such a convenience that now it will no longer take up time to skim through your newsfeed at work, post pictures you have taken days ago or other time-consuming tasks. A smart phone now makes it possible to be interactive with your fans simply by pressing a few buttons whenever you have a few seconds to spare. When you are at an event, you can check-in to FourSquare, along with adding tips about your location and to see who else has checked in there that day. This will also simultaneously promote that event because now anyone who is following you will see you are attending and it may spike interest for them to attend. If we continue with this example of attending an event, you can also take photos and video using your smart phone’s camera. Smart phones make it possible to immediately post this content to anything, such as E-mail, text-messaging, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr- you name it! You can then add a description of the picture or video you posted. This will allow you to feature live content from anywhere you are, which makes the amount of promotional possibilities skyrocket.

We all know that a big reason for people gathering at business events is to network. Social media takes networking one step further by allowing you to interact with new contacts on a casual day-to-day basis after meeting them. This is made possible by sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Don’t exchange business cards that may get lost, discarded or added to a mile-long Excel spreadsheet of contacts. Instead, digitally connect with the people you meet through social media using your phone. It is a fresh, interactive way of staying in touch. Being able to ask, “Are you on Facebook or LinkedIn?” and then friend them using your smart phone makes networking easy and fun. Connecting with contacts through social media will allow you to exchange information in the future, see who their contacts are, gain a better knowledge of their work experience, learn what future events they are going to and more.

Cell phones are no longer just for calling and texting.  They now offer the ability for people to share their experiences with others through photos, videos, announcements, links and more. Smart phones are helping people become more connected in incredible ways, and this is just the beginning. If you have a smart phone but are still hesitant about stepping into the world of social media, jump in now. It is easy to learn and use and you would be blown away with what your smart phone is capable of doing!

Editors Note: Heidi Tolliver-Nigro posted on February 6 about SmartPhones and Phonebooks and the generational gap. John’s post is a timely reminder that we need to become users of the channel so that we can better understand how to support the channel for our customers.

I just returned from the PODi 2011 AppForum in Las Vegas.  It was a great event and my colleagues and I had an opportunity to meet with many of our customers in addition to many Print Service Providers (PSP’s) trying to find the “silver bullet” for new revenue growth. During my flight home I was thinking about the many attendees that regularly attend events like AppForum and get all fired up about exciting new opportunities for growth and then go back to their business and continue to do the same things, day in and day out.  By doing so they miss out on the success that others enjoy.

I thought about this and I identified a possible reason that Print Service Providers (PSPs) don’t “embrace change” and continue to use the same approach for their business.

I call it – The Fear Factor!

Let me explain.  During this year’s PODI AppForum there were many excellent presentations where PSPs demonstrated how they had embraced new solutions and were growing their business in many new, exciting areas of opportunity.  Several Print Service Providers (now Marketing Service Providers) introduced example after example where they had generated millions of new printed pages (higher value pages with new services) as a result of embracing change in their business and building new capabilities.

Was it easy – NO!  But is it possible – absolutely!

Why is it so difficult to embrace change?

Here’s a short list of PSP Fear Factors that have been shared with me over the years:

• The FEAR of failure
• The FEAR of change on their business
• The FEAR of change on their customer
• The FEAR of their competition
• The FEAR of change on their employees
• The FEAR of a new technology impact in their organization
• The FEAR of commitment to something new and the learning curve
• The FEAR of “can the sales team sell new offerings”
• The FEAR of any change on core offerings

Every one of these concerns is valid and worthy of further analysis.  Rather than viewing these concerns as threats what if we viewed them as opportunities? As executives continue to face the fear of the unknown they will just as quickly tell you that they are working hard for business improvement. The executives I have spoken with will typically tell you that they would like to achieve improvement in the following areas

• Grow top line revenue
• Secure new customer wins in new areas of opportunity
• Improve shop floor efficiencies
• Lower production costs
• Grow bottom-line profit
• Grow the business with new capabilities

If executives seek business improvement, but at the same time, fear the changes that drive it, what should they do?

Here’s a short list that might help answer that question.

• Identify market opportunities that complement your business capabilities
• Identify services that are an extension of your business
• Build capabilities that your customers are investing in
• Seek market opportunities that are generating significant growth
• Invest in the necessary resources for success
• Make the time to meet with others that have made the journey successfully – learn from them
• Identify partners that have the means to help you achieve success
• Do the research, embrace the change and develop a plan for success

There are just too many examples of new growth in our industry to not pay attention to how this is being accomplished and to learn from it!

In closing, there are a number of significant growth arenas available to every Print Service Provider in the industry.  The growing number of successful companies achieving business transformation is a reality!  Fear is good as a guide to what you need to plan for but not if it leads to paralysis.  Embrace the growth opportunities in front of you, learn from others and find the right partners for success!

There is an old adage that says, “Never trust a chef that doesn’t eat his own cooking.” You might think that the problem for the cook would be making sure that they don’t eat too much of their own cooking. But, if you’ve ever been a professional cook or chef as I was many moons ago, you know that sometimes you get so tired of being around food you don’t eat. I once cooked for an Italian restaurant, Café Amalfi, and I couldn’t eat red sauce for about a year after I left.

I have to wonder if printers and agencies feel the same way. They spend all day cranking out communications for clients and rarely do any marketing for themselves. It’s amazing to me how few companies, desperately seeking to deliver marketing services for clients, actually conduct ongoing campaigns for themselves.

Service providers – it’s time to eat your own cooking!

In prepping for this post, I called several service providers around the country, primarily regional firms that I’ve known for a while. I tried to focus on companies that used to mail to me when I was with Art Plus Technology. I started working on this thinking I would get a whole bunch of great examples to show. Instead, I got several types of responses to my request to “speak to the person who handles internal marketing for the company rather than marketing services for clients:”

1. A receptionist who told me that “we don’t have any one here who does that.” (Folks – an unhappy receptionist is not a good thing for your business – but I digress.)
2. A receptionist who told me that there was one person (sometimes two people) who does that, “but he spends most of his time on the road.” You know what? That sounds like a sales person – not a marketing person.
3. If I made it past the receptionist (typically by cheating and calling someone I already knew there) the answer was, “we used to do that – but we haven’t in a long time.”

Wow! “We used to.”

Used to have more business too – hmmm? See a corollary there? Sarcasm aside, I do understand. The economy is slow. Maybe  you’re short staffed. The cobblers children have no shoes etc. etc. But haven’t we been telling our clients and prospects that a downturn is the right time to get more attention for your marketing dollars because there is less activity out there? Telling them that you can’t afford to go silent just because things are slow? Telling them that direct marketing is important for maintaining your brand equity?

I repeat. Service providers. EAT. YOUR. OWN. COOKING! (and stop whining about the vegetables.)

One bright spot in my research efforts was Wilde – one of my local suppliers here in Boston (ironically I know them through restaurant connections as well – go figure.) I had been to a marketing seminar that Wilde offered in partnership with 3 other agencies last year (held at a restaurant ‘cause they’re foodies.) and I called to find out how often they did that kind of stuff. Clearly they are not only doing a lot – but tracking it too because Julie Sullivan and Liz Swanson were able to get info to me within hours of my request (and lookee – two live marketing people actually in the office –even during a snow storm!) Here’s what I found out:

Wilde has a formal   lead generation program to support their sales force. For the past year, they have had campaigns dropping every four to six weeks,

The campaigns promote downloadable content (white papers, tips sheets), webinars, and in-person seminars that showcase their direct marketing capabilities though thought-leadership (from creative strategies to operations best practices).

They use email,  direct mail pieces and are branching into inbound marketing channels, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and their blog (and providing content to 3^rd party blogs such as thedigitalnirvana.)

 70% of leads generated in 2010 were deemed “marketing qualified,” meaning they met the ideal customer/ prospect profile. Almost 30% of qualified leads led to a sales opportunity and half of those 2010 opportunities have already led to closed business (and more may convert since the sales cycle can be as long as two years). 

One of the other, less quantifiable benefits of this marketing effort has been an overall perception lift for Wilde. Because their lead gen campaigns centered on value-added direct marketing content, as opposed to pushing products,  clients are recognizing them as being experts in direct marketing—not just your run-of-the-mill lettershop.

That, my friends, is the value of eating your own cooking!

 I am sure that there are other companies out there investing in their own marketing well-being, but I sure couldn’t find them last week. If you’ve got some good examples to share – please get in touch.