Written by Bill Michael
eMarketing Manager
Xerox Corporation

With the snow beginning to melt and temperatures slowly starting to rise, Spring, believe it or not, is just around the corner (March 20, to be exact)! For many, this signals the start of wedding season. In fact, 28% of weddings in the United States take place in the spring, second only to summer (29.5%). Chances are you know of somebody getting married this year, and chances are some of your customers are seeking wedding card services. In the United States in 2011, wedding statistics show that the average number of guests in attendance was 141, and nearly $350 was spent on wedding invitations alone. Adding production capabilities of wedding cards to your list of services can be a very profitable venture. MagnetStreet, a Xerox Best-of-the-Best winner, proved just that by creating a portfolio book to house samples of their invitation cards, fueling over $2.5 million in revenue growth over a 12 month period. How’d they do it? Let’s take a look:

MagnetStreet had a long history of successfully offering customers save-the-date magnets and cards, but saw huge growth opportunities in the wedding invitation space. However, they needed a strategy to successfully bridge into this offering. They knew they had the attention of their customer once their save-the-date invitations were ordered and received. But simply accompanying a flyer or sell-sheet with the order wouldn’t be enough to turn a future sale. They needed a way to blow away the recipient. MagnetStreet created an Invitation LookBook, a portfolio book filled with examples of their invitation offerings. The book was produced mostly on an offset press, with all of the invitation cards and two pages of perforated color swatches printed on their Xerox iGen4 Press.

To drive response and encourage engagement, each book included a unique discount code that was created using Xerox FreeFlow Variable Information Suite and Xerox FreeFlow VIPP Pro Publisher. MagnetStreet could modify each variable offer and monitor to see which offers were driving the highest response. FreeFlow tools also offered built-in security, as each created discount code was unique and couldn’t be used more than once.

Couples fell in love with the quality of the wedding invitations, and MagnetStreet saw a huge boost to their bottom line. In fact, within one year, conversions of save-the-date customers to wedding invitation customers rose 56%. Within that same year, invitation orders increased by 103% and MagnetStreet saw their revenue grow by more than $2.5 million. MagnetStreet was the recipient of a Xerox Best-of-the-Best Award for their outstanding success.

Do you have a success story you’d like to share for international recognition? Are you a member of the Xerox Premier Partner Global Network? Enter into the Xerox Best-of-the-Best Contest today – entries close April 3, 2013!

Interested in more topics similar to photo specialty offerings or success stories? You may want to check out:

• Uncovering Opportunities within your Print Operation with Greeting Cards
• How the InterContinental Hotels Group Was Able to Cut through the Clutter
• Looking to Boost Awareness of your Company’s Capabilities and Attract New Customers? The Xerox Best-of-the-Best Program can Help!
• It’s the Most Wonderful Time of The Year…for Photo Publishing
• EU Services Creates Web-to-Print Variable Brochure for Sales Force

Written by Mary Roddy
Marketing Manager, Premier Partners Global Network
Xerox Corporation

Innovative personalized chocolate packaging that produces $100,000 in profit through a single holiday season, a direct marketing campaign that helps Mercedes-Benz UK achieve a 53:1 ROI, a wedding invitation book that helps drive over $2.5 million in revenue….what do all of these have in common? They are all previous winners of the Xerox Best-of-the-Best Program, a worldwide award contest, open exclusively to members of the Xerox Premier Partners Network.

This program draws participation from the most successful and innovative print shops across the globe, showcasing creativity and business impact using Xerox digital technology. In addition to recognition of great digital work by the graphic communications community, winners receive outstanding marketing and promotional opportunities. Each winning entrant is featured in a case study which can be used with customers and prospects, posted on the web, discussed in presentations, and as a proof point in email and direct marketing campaigns. Winners are showcased at regional, national, and international industry tradeshows/events and also in international press releases.

Today we’re announcing the 2013 Xerox Best-of-the-Best Program will open for entries on January 8, 2013. Members of the Premier Partners Network can submit their work in any of the following categories:

-Books
-Collateral (Web-to-Print)
-Digital and Offset
-Digital Packaging
-Direct Marketing
-Photo Publishing
-TransPromo

If you are a member of the Premier Partners Network –be sure to take advantage of this tremendous opportunity! On January 8th, visit the Best-of-the-Best website at www.xerox.com/bestofthebest to get started.

If you are not a member of the Xerox Premier Partners Network, visit the Premier Partners Portal today at www.xeroxpremierpartners.com to learn about the program and benefits members receive, and become a member!

You’ll want to hurry – this year’s Best-of-the-Best Contest closes April 3, 2013!

Written by Mary Roddy
Global Marketing Manager, Xerox Premier Partners Global Network
Xerox Corporation

Written by Brian Segnit
The Xerox Photo Guy
Xerox Corporation

If Abe Lincoln’s mom had his baby book printed on a Xerox iGen4 with Matte Dry Ink it would still look great today.  Abe was a baby about 200 years ago and today’s color photos  will fade over time – when exposed to light and even stored in the dark.   Most of us have pictures in a shoebox,  stored in a closet, that are showing how the quality of the photo has degraded.

As images become as important as text in communicating a message (consumer market for photo is $2B, the B2B market for photo rich documents is $12B today!) – the issue of image permanence has become even more important.  We are seeing continued growth in the photo sector as people move away from the stale 4×6 print to the exciting consumer products of press printed photo books, greeting cards, calendars, and other photo specialty items that are not produced via the traditional photographic process (light sensitive photo paper and chemicals).  This  growing demand for photo quality is driving sales of Xerox iGens, Color Presses, and Xerox 770 into the photo publishing market(see YouTube video @ http://xrx.sm/CJ9) .

At Xerox we engaged Wilhelm Imaging Research ( www.wilhelm-research.com ) who provides consulting services to museums, archives, and is an independent industry expert who conducts research on the stability and preservation of traditional and digital color photographs.  We asked Wilhelm to Certify the Permanence of a Xerox iGen4 print.   Wilhelm Imagine Research awarded the Xerox iGen4 with Matte Dry Ink (excellent for photo quality) the 200+ year dark permanence rating for photo books!  We are proud to display the Wilhelm Certification – now only if Abe’s mom had a digital camera!

For more information on this, or any photo related topic, please feel free to comment below.

Written By Joel Basa
eMarketing Manager
Xerox Corporation

Yes, it’s my b-day! There is no better way to spend my birthday than writing a blog post as I battle my allergies while sitting in my cube (no sarcasm here). I received many birthday greetings over the past 36 hours. My Facebook timeline is flooded with nice messages, my text message inbox has started to fill and I’ve even received a few e-cards and e-mails.

However, the most memorable and meaningful greetings I’ve received come in good old fashioned print. But the world of greeting cards has changed, although many of you (and me) still spend minutes searching the card aisle at your local grocery store, personalized digitally printed cards have become a more popular and desirable option.

Here’s one of the cards that was sent to me. Personalized using my name but these images were sourced from Facebook.

The world population is 6,973,738,433….that’s a lot of birthdays. If you could send 0.02% of that number a birthday card, that’s 1394747 cards! Is your business capitalizing on the greeting card segment?

Written By Joe Schember
Product Marketing, Digital
Mohawk

Remember when you were growing up and your parents would tell you that you were special? Whether you were struggling to make new friends or upset about a bad haircut, hearing that simple phrase could bring a smile to your face – even if it seemed like the world was ending (oh, dramatic youth). Printers today are striving to be special. They want to be more to their customers. To bring smiles to their customers’ faces, while still running an efficient and profitable operation. Many in the industry are turning to specialty digital substrates to achieve this goal.

Mohawk’s Specialty Digital portfolio includes synthetic, pressure sensitive (labels, clings), magnet, embedded, and photo substrates designed for digital presses. Whether it’s on your Xerox Color 560 or your Xerox iGen 150, these unique materials help make you special while increasing your bottom line. If you’re hesitant to go beyond paper, keep reading as I debunk some common myths.

Myth #1: They’re expensive.

Any higher initial cost is easily offset by the printer’s ability to set a higher selling price and achieve a higher margin than traditional paper jobs. They’re also packaged in smaller quantities so you can buy only what you need.

Myth #2: They aren’t compatible with my digital press.

Mohawk has a reputation for quality and works with leading manufacturers to test compatibility of our digital products. Many specialty products perform well in a range of digital equipment, but you can check your specific compatibility in our matrix provided thru Mohawk MakeReady. Samples to test are readily available thru your paper merchant or online at MohawkConnects.com.

Myth #3: They’re hard to sell.

Don’t make it harder than it needs to be. Use specialty substrates in your own self promo. Show customers examples and throw a few samples into existing jobs. Explain how these materials can make their marketing campaigns more unique, effective, and impactful. Digital is great for these short, demo runs to spur interest.

Myth #4: My customers don’t have an application for them.

Show them what they can do and I bet you’ll be surprised. Synthetics are great for waterproof books or ID cards. Pressure sensitive stocks shine as bottle labels, window clings, and decorative seals. Magnets are attractive for calendars and signage while embedded magnets and synthetic cards make durable loyalty cards and save-the-dates. Finally, panoramic photo paper enables layflat photo books and collateral where images and graphics sprawl freely without being lost in the gutter of a traditional bind.

The applications are really endless with these types of materials, especially when paired with digital print and VDP. Don’t limit yourself. Give yourself a shot to be special today!

BONUS: I’m happy to have an exclusive giveaway for the Xerox readers today! Shoot me an email with your shipping info and I’ll send you a free copy of Mohawk’s Specialty Digital Swatchbook so you can begin exploring these high-value materials.

Written By Bill Michael
Marketing Analyst
Xerox Corporation

You know them: hearing, sight, touch, smell, taste. At drupa, each of your senses will be put to great use, as you will:

• Hear: The excitement of the 1000s of attendees in the print industry having conversations on a variety of topics.
• See: Technology and software that represents the future of our industry
• Touch: Printed samples with specialty media, innovative finishing, and special toner
• Smell: toner, ink and paper in the air as you walk by every vendors stand.
• Taste: German cuisine (maybe for the first time) and perhaps a few brands of German beer with some friends and colleagues.

At the Xerox stand (Hall 8b), your senses can best be used by seeing and touching the applications that we’ll be showcasing live in our stand, including many Best-of-the-Best winners. These winners include: IOS (Digital and Offset), Mediaware (Digital Packaging), MBA Group Limited (TransPromo), Telemail, S.L. (TransPromo), Easy Print (Photo Publishing), Printshop (Photo Publishing). Three additional winners include:

	DG3 Europe Limited (Best Overall Solution, case study) The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, the largest youth charity in the UK, wanted to enable their award winners to create and order personalized Achievement Packs online. They approached DG3 Europe Limited, who mapped out an end-to-end solution using FreeFlow Process Manager™ and the iGen4 with a Xerox FreeFlow™ Print Server – resulting in a 637% increase in usage of the achievement pack.
	De Budelse (Digital Packaging, case study) Recognizing the growing area of digital packaging, De Budelse built FotoChoco.nl to enable orders of personalized boxes of chocolate. Using the iGen4 and FreeFlow Print Server, they were able to sell over 11,000 boxes of chocolate. (your sense of taste!)
	CopyCat (Direct Marketing, case study) Using the Xerox Color 1000 Press, CopyCat used clear dry ink and personalized cross media to drive new business. The campaign generated a 10% response rate and helped bring in 20 new orders from new customers.

Please stop by Xerox Stand in Hall 8B to see and touch these great applications. We’ll find other ways to exercise your other senses!