Written by Heidi Tolliver-Walker, Print Industry Analyst

Guess what? Your tax dollars just bought you more data — or at least better access to data. That’s the hope anyway.

Last week, President Obama signed an executive order, with the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy released an “open data policy” declaring that data gathered by the government is a national asset and should be easily accessible by the public. Much of this information is available already, but the goal, according to the administration, is to make it even more so.

In a press release, the White House Press Office gave several examples of how open data has spurred innovation and product development that ultimately has helped the economy. Examples include the economic sector of agricultural advisory services stemming from government weather satellites and ground stations (something we can thank for The Weather Channel, too) and commercial GPS-based products resulting from the release of formerly military-only data.

While much government data is already available to the public, the White House is declaring its continuation of this commitment and intent to make the data even more accessible. As part of this commitment, you can watch for a re-invigorated and improved data.gov (the central hub for open government data), including new services such as easier navigation, better mapping tools, and robust API access for developers.

For XGPPN members and print providers alike, this is an open invitation for your business development and IT staff to poke around and see what business opportunities you can generate. You’ve been handed a treasure trove of data at absolutely no cost, and over time, that treasure will become increasingly easy to use. What will you do with it?

Interested in other topics similar to data and how to leverage data in your business? Check out:

• Define Your Target Market as Tightly as Possible
• Current Trends Present New Opportunities: 7 Tips For Selling To Direct Marketers
• The TransPromo space is alive and well – are you taking advantage? This Printer Did, Reducing Client’s Statement Costs by 30%
• Direct Marketing: Get Relevant, Get Results – Part I:

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Interested in becoming a Premier Partner or looking for more information on the Xerox Premier Partner Global Network and the many benefits received by its exclusive membership? Click here.

Written by Bill Michael
eMarketing Manager, Xerox Corporation

You understand the benefits of direct marketing, its effectiveness for your customers and the value it can deliver for your bottom line. But actually doing it, and doing it well – now that’s a completely different story!

DMA states the response rate of direct mail is more than 30x higher than that of email, with an average response rate of 4.4% compared with the 0.12% of email. Offering direct marketing services can help you deliver endless value to your customers, transitioning your company from a print provider to a trusted adviser for marketing strategy and print production.

But becoming a strategic partner involves more than simply adding to your service offerings – you’ll also need a sales team in place capable of selling direct marketing services. If this sounds intimidating – just remember, you aren’t alone and Rome certainly wasn’t built in a day. If making the jump into marketing services was so easy, everyone would be doing it!

We recently gathered with a large group of print providers, marketing service providers and industry experts to discuss everything-direct marketing at the Gil Hatch Center for Customer Innovation in Webster, New York. Our Thought Leadership Workshop covered:

• Psychology based marketing and how to trigger the unconscious minds of your consumers
• The art and science of selling direct marketing
• Real examples of how customer database information can be utilized to market more personally
• Integrated direct marketing opportunities using XMPie offerings

Psychology-Based Marketing: Direct Marketing that taps into consumers’ unconscious mind
During our workshop, Jeanette McMurtry of e4marketing explained the importance of understanding the thought processes and unconscious mind of your consumer. This allows you to better position direct marketing campaigns for success. Brand loyalty doesn’t exist today like in the past. 52% of a company’s ‘highly loyal’ customers will be reduced in one year’s time, with 33% leaving for a competing brand. 60% of brands will lose at least half of their customers from year-to-year.

So what does ESP and direct marketing have in common? Jeanette explained how human behavior is based upon two fundamental premises: the avoidance of pain and pursuit of pleasure. Identifying the pain your customer’s end-users are trying to avoid, and addressing through a well-thought out direct marketing campaign can drive incredible results. Each consumer’s behavior is guided by its id, ego, and superego, as explained in Freud’s theory of personality. If your customer is looking to create a campaign to reach 100 consumers, they are actually reaching out to 300 because of the varying personalities! As a marketer – it is critical to understand how different personalities affect loyalty to brand and purchasing behavior.

Do you know what makes your customer’s target audience feel happy and what they value? Happiness and an understanding of what is important to them can drive purchase behavior. By knowing what messaging will resonate with end-users, a campaign can more accurately be designed. Edelman Good Purpose Survey found that 71% say they will make a point to buy from companies with similar values as their own. Is it a coincidence that this year’s Super Bowl ad that generated one of the top purchase-intent scores was created for Got Milk? They understood their female audience and what messaging would resonate, crafting an advertisement that conveyed how their product can help in the caring for their family.

Jeanette then went into detail on the importance of color and messaging in campaigns, and how they each uniquely affect consumer response. Studies show within 90 seconds, a consumer will make an unconscious judgment of a product, and 60-90% of that judgment is based upon the use of color. Choosing the right messaging can help tap into consumers’ unconscious. Words such as ‘dependable’, ‘limited time’, and ‘approved’ are proven to be emotionally charged. How a message is framed is also a critical consideration, as ‘free’ speaks louder than ‘two-for-one’.

Easier said than done, but by understanding the unconscious mind of your customer’s end-user, you can better develop a psychologically relevant campaign that will drive a desired behavior.

A Look Inside Relevant Direct Marketing Programs
Shelley Sweeney, Vice President Service Bureau/Direct Marketing at Xerox, shared several examples of direct marketing campaigns that have utilized database information to market more personally. One that really stood out was a campaign for the New York Mets, who were moving into a new stadium but were struggling to drive attendance. In a typical day, a consumer is exposed to roughly 3,000 media messages. They pay attention to 52 and will positively remember 4. For the Mets, a relevant and highly personalized campaign was necessary to drive a behavior – purchase of season tickets!

The campaign targeted group sales, using a database of 3,000 groups that had attended games in the past, as well as a purchased mailing list that brought the total to 6,800 groups. Database information included the organization name, contact name, address and email address. Variable marketing pieces were created and included the name of the organization, the group leaders surname sprawled across the back of a jersey (using XMPie uImage) and specific messaging and imagery reflecting the group’s category and likely interests (boy scout organizations included different messaging/images than business organizations, for example).

The list of 6,800 groups was split in half to create a test group (Shelley emphasized this during the workshop), with 3,400 receiving static mass-marketing pieces similar to what the Mets had been sending in the past – while the other 3,400 received the newly- created customized mailers. Three weeks later, a follow-up mailing was sent to the same divided list.

The results were quite impressive: the data-driven mailer saw a 57.2% increase in group ticket sales over the static control mailer. Revenue from the data-driven mailer was 40.9% higher than revenue from the static mailer. Even more impressive, the Mets saw an 80% increase in group ticket sales over the previous season.

What have you found to be critical considerations for successful direct marketing? Check out these other direct-marketing related posts:

• Define Your Target Market as Tightly as Possible
• Tough Questions about the PSP-MSP Evolution
• Leveraging a Self-Promo Direct Marketing Campaign to your Benefit
• You Don’t Have to Become a Marketing Services Provider to Offer Marketing Services

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Part II of our Direct Marketing recap will discuss the art and science of selling direct marketing services, as well as a look into integrated direct marketing opportunities using XMPie. Jeanette McMurtry of e4marketing can be contacted for more information on the Psychology of Direct Marketing.

Written by Susan Weiss
Manager, Xerox Worldwide Customer Business Development

Two firms with starting points in different locations and decades have had their paths indirectly cross by how they have chosen to serve their customer bases. QuantumDigital began business in 1986 specializing in postcard mailings for real estate agents, while PIP Printing and Marketing Services Columbus got its start in 1974 as a general-purpose commercial printer. Today, the two firms have arrived at a similar place: finding growth by aggregating production volume from small and medium-sized businesses that share industry-specific marketing needs.

Both told their stories during a recent webinar in the 2013 Xerox Business Development Webinar Series, “Targeting: Small and Medium-Sized Businesses…the Volume Aggregation Opportunity.”

And a good-sized opportunity it is with about 6 million SMBs in the United States, according to InfoTrends. “They want to do what every other business does: gain new customers, expand existing relationships and do customer retention effectively. But they are constrained by a lack of budget, time and expertise,” said Barb Pellow, group director, InfoTrends, the webinar’s moderator.

Those are the needs QuantumDigital and PIP Columbus are meeting with solutions that blend print, mobile, social, email and Web components. “We automate marketing to take it from a random act to a systematic one that frequently takes place whether the client touches it or not,” said Eric Cosway, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Austin, Texas-based QuantumDigital.

For years, QuantumDigital focused on real estate clients, building an information technology expertise that helped them guarantee 24-hour turnarounds. More recently the firm has leveraged its expertise to win work with franchise businesses, such as Hallmark Crown Stores, Michelin and John Deere.

In addition, QuantumDigital partners with AT&T Systems to run Digital Express, an end-to-end direct mail service that serves small businesses from a QuantumDigital-hosted Web site. “We make small businesses look bigger than they are,” Cosway said.

Columbus, Ohio-based PIP Columbus has long counted small- and medium-sized businesses as its heartland customers, but recently began offering marketing services and targeting verticals in a systematic way.

“We’re all aware that a lot of printers who are only printers are going out of business,” said Susan Layman, general manager, PIP Columbus. The franchise took the advice of its franchisor, Franchise Services, Inc. (FSI), she said, “to broaden our base, and develop the expertise to provide a range of marketing services to our customers.”

Among their targets: the 700 dentists in the Columbus area. “They don’t have time to develop marketing plans,” Layman said. “We show how we can help grow their business, and they appreciate it.”

To hear a replay of the “Targeting: Small and Medium-Sized Businesses…the Volume Aggregation Opportunity” webinar, click here. And to sign up for upcoming 2013 Business Development Webinars, including “Targeting: Vertical Markets…The Enterprise Opportunity on June 12,” click here.

Do you target the SMB market? What’s your approach? Is it working?

Interested in other topics similar to growing your business through strategic opportunities? Check out:

• Define Your Target Market as Tightly as Possible
• How to Increase SEO and Generate Sales Leads
• When it comes to Direct Marketing Campaigns: Practice what you Preach
• How do I Market Better and Offer Marketing Services?

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Susan Weiss, manager, Xerox Worldwide Customer Business Development, is Xerox’s host for the 2013 Business Development Webinar Series.

Written by Howard Fenton
Senior Technology Consultant, NAPL

As I’ve written about before, talking to a search engine optimization (SEO) consultant reminds me of talking to a voodoo witch doctor.  Each has their own unique way to position their strange juju to get your page ranking higher on the Google search list. Ironically when you start to research the subject you learn that it’s not as magical as some would make you believe.

What is SEO and why is it important? The goal of SEO is to get your company or product, higher on the Google search page page rankings when customers are researching products. The two main strategies to get higher on the list are paid search, which means you’re paying for listings much like buying ads, and organic search which means the search engines list you higher based on your content, backlinks and webpage design.

As the name would suggest, internal page design refers to the coding behind your webpage such as your metatags, keywords, internal linking, and formatting. Backlinking refers to links from other sites and the popularity of those other sites. The link from a  more popular page will carry more weight than the link from an obscure page. Content marketing includes writing blogs and pushing people to those blogs using Twitter and LinkedIn.

One way to increase effectiveness of content marketing is to push people to that content using sites like Twitter and LinkedIn.  Expanding upon the voodoo witch doctor theme, to take advantage of your own juju, you want to create the illusion that you are a thought leader. That perception is created by blogging and recommending articles from other thought leaders.

How much should you write and how much should you recommend? I shoot for ratio of 3 or 4 to 1. In other words, for every blog I create, I recommend 3 or 4 articles written by others. Some experts recommend writing 5 blogs a week, but that is a huge time commitment and I have not seen significantly better results from 3 blogs a week.  Other ways to increase interest is to include pictures or graphics, and some believe that video blogs are more interesting than the written blogs.

The goal here is to push people down a sales funnel. It might start with a mention and a link in Twitter or LinkedIn which pushes people to a blog, then an article and ultimately to a website where an offer is made. The whole time you’re engaging your audience by talking to them about a subject that interests them and increasing your SEO.

The bottom line is write about subjects that will help your customers in their business, push them to your blogs from other sources, encourage feedback and you will enhance your reputation as a thought leader, become easier to find on the web and create a lead generation tool to sell more products.

How are you going to increase your SEO and generate new sales leads?

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Howie Fenton is a consultant and business advisor at NAPL. Howie advises commercial printers and in-plants on benchmarking performance against industry leaders, increasing productivity through workflow management, adding and integrating new digital services, and adding value through customer research. He is a paid contributor to this blog.

Written by Susan Weiss
Manager, Xerox Worldwide Customer Business Development

One of the best ways to gain an edge in today’s hyper-competitive graphic communications industry is by defining, pursuing and become experts in target markets.

That’s how Barb Pellow, group director, Infotrends, set the stage for our recent Business Development Series webinar on “Targeting the Right Markets,” which featured her and Robert Blakely, vice president, Business Development, Echo Communicate, a Baltimore, Md.-based graphic communications company.

In telling his company’s story, Blakely didn’t so much echo Pellow’s comments as amplify them. When targeting markets, he said, “Start with the tightest vertical focus possible. Find the company most like your initial win, and expand from there.”

That’s what Echo Communicate did after building a successful membership recruitment and retention business with US Lacrosse, that sport’s national governing body. Blakely initiated the business with a cold call about printing the Baltimore-based organization’s membership cards. The conversation quickly escalated to broader membership issues, leading US Lacrosse to give Echo access to its membership data. “We did something with their data that they hadn’t done yet,” Blakely said. “We quantified their pain.”

That helped give Echo the credibility to develop a highly automated, XMPie-software-based membership retention solution for US Lacrosse. In the first year, it boosted retention by 26 percent.

With that success, Echo began pursuing like organizations for its solution, focusing exclusively on national governing bodies of other sports. The tight definition optimized the expertise Echo was developing, and made collecting target information easy. “We had a list of national governing bodies in just a few minutes,” Blakely said.

Echo introduced the solution by using a multi-channel invitation with personalized sports imagery to invite prospects to a webinar featuring a US Lacrosse executive. Of 80 invitees, 40 attended. They heard a compelling message. “Nothing is more powerful than having our client tell their peers how wonderful it is to work with us,” Blakely said.

Several attendees are new customers. Because the solution is so automated and specialized, sales cycles and rollouts have been progressively easier and faster. And because the Echo team is now immersed in the vertical, its expertise has grown exponentially. In addition, margins are higher than in the traditional print business. In short, Blakely said, “It’s a winner.”

To hear a replay of the “Targeting the Right Markets” webinar, click here. And be sure to sign up for our upcoming 2013 Business Development Webinars, including “Targeting: Small and Medium-Sized Businesses…the Volume Aggregation Opportunity” on April 17 and “Targeting: Vertical Markets…The Enterprise Opportunity on June 12,” click here.

Have you experienced success by tightly defining a vertical and offering customized solutions? What drives your successes in targeting markets?

If you enjoyed this post, you may also be interested in:

• XMPie Cross-Media Campaign Boosts College Admissions for Maryland Institution
• Do you Encourage your Customers to Interact?
• Personalized Renewal Notices Boost Membership Rates for Football Club
• You Don’t Have to Become a Marketing Services Provider to Offer Marketing Services

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Susan Weiss, manager, Xerox Worldwide Customer Business Development, is Xerox’s host for the 2013 Business Development Webinar Series

Written by Howard Fenton
Senior Technology Consultant, NAPL

At Graph Expo last fall and the upcoming Print tradeshow later this year, we have heard and will continue to hear  about the critical trends within our industry. And if this year’s Print show resembles anything like last year’s Graph Expo, you will not be able to walk ten feet in any direction and not hear a presentation on how to market yourself and offer marketing services. Last fall you could barely get out of earshot from interlinkONE before you started hearing a presentation from MindFire, or one of the digital press manufacturers, all discussing the growth and revenue opportunities in marketing better and offering marketing services.

We’ve seen this trend in our research too. We asked in the most recent NAPL State of the Industry Research, “What are you doing to make this year better than last year?”. We found that almost everyone (97%) said they’re planning to improve their marketing and sales and boost their growth and pricing power through initiatives such as diversification of services and acquisitions.

You can read about this in trade magazines and in stories that talk about the evolution from print service provider (PSPs) to marketing services provider (MSPs). But what you won’t hear at the shows or read about in magazines are the companies that are trying, but unsuccessful in marketing their own new services or offering marketing services.

For companies with little experience in marketing, putting the right message in front of the right person at the right time can be difficult, especially when you don’t have the right resources, staff, or a  large marketing budget. There are many good resources to help you learn more about marketing and marketing services. One is the portfolio of services Xerox offers called Profit Accelerator.

Unfortunately in too many of the shops that I visit I see those Marketing binders looking pretty on a shelf but coated with a film of dust. If you’re lucky enough to own one of those marketing resources, you should consider dusting it off and revisiting in. If you’re interested in learning more, we will be offer a webinar on this subject on April 23, 2013 at 11:00 EDT. We will have a panel of marketing experts talking about what you need to know and how you can start improving your own marketing  efforts. You can even submit your questions in advance of the webinar and we will try to include your question in our program. Simply e-mail your question to newstalk@napl.org.

If you’re interested in attending follow this link to sign up.

Interested in learning more about better marketing your business or offering marketing services? You may want to check out:

• You Don’t Have to Become a Marketing Services Provider to Offer Marketing Services
• Tough Questions about the PSP-MSP Evolution
• Leveraging a Self-Promo Direct Marketing Campaign to your Benefit
• Is Your Strength Also a Weakness

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Howie Fenton is a consultant and business advisor at NAPL. Howie advises commercial printers and in-plants on benchmarking performance against industry leaders, increasing productivity through workflow management, adding and integrating new digital services, and adding value through customer research.

Written by Fred Ramsey
Worldwide Marketing Product Manager, Xerox Corporation

Do you know the significance of today? If you were wearing your mathematical cap this morning when glancing at your mobile device or calendar, perhaps you associated today’s date, March 14th (3.14) with Pi Day. Pi, the Greek letter π, is the symbol that is used to represent a constant that is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. As an irrational number, the digits beyond its decimal point continue infinitely without repetition or pattern.

There are many unique ways to celebrate Pi day; observing the history of pi, baking and eating pies (blueberry is my personal favorite), telling pi jokes, seeing how many digits of pi you can memorize (my son has memorized 27 decimal places)…the list goes on, much like pi itself.

The Xerox Color 550/560 Printer has found its own unique and fun way to celebrate National Pi Day, highlighted by a print application printed on 11”x17” (279.4mm x 431.8mm) paper, complete with more than 500,000 digits of pi, in 0.6 font contained within a 6” x 13” area. We’re talking about text that is just 1/100^th of an inch high and requires a magnifying glass or loupe to legibly read.

This print sample with its insanely small text illustrates much more than just some fancy magic trick you can whip out during cocktail hour to impress your friends. Think of the real-world usages enabled through the Xerox 550/560, its outstanding image quality with 2,400 x 2,400 dots per inch (DPI) print resolution and the patented Xerox specialty imaging security print technology, such as:

- MicroText (text printed at smaller than 1 point size)
- Correlation marks (printed text that is only visible when superimposed by a ‘key’ overlay)
- GlossMark text (printed text that isn’t visible on straight-on view but becomes visible under inclined illumination)
- FluorescentMark/InfraRed text (printed text that is only visible under UV/black-light or in the dark with an infrared camera)

All of these specialty imaging technologies provide outstanding opportunities for you to provide your customers with applications rich with security features, such as coupons, tickets, ID badges for university students or employees, and invoices.

The ability to print such small text is a good example of the 2,400×2,400 DPI of the Xerox 550/560 in action, offering incredible production capabilities and image quality at a value price. As you can imagine, there are real-world benefits to being able to address the smallest of dot sizes. Greater print resolution and more accurate dot control allows for even print coverage and better density while using less toner. And by using less toner, supplies costs are kept in check. With special polyester EA low melt toner, the 550/560 output fuses to polyester in a chemically bonding way, ensuring outstanding image quality on specialty substrates such as plastic, polyester and more.

What digital print applications do you think are prime examples to effectively utilize specialty imaging and security print technology?

Help us celebrate National Pi Day by responding, as we will be giving away prints of the ‘500,000 Digits of Pi’ print sample complete with Xerox magnifying glasses and mini LED microscopes!

Interested in more topics similar to application ideas, the Xerox Color 550/560, and security printing? You may like:

• Documents Can’t Defend Themselves!
• 3 Application Ideas for your Shop
• Xerox Color 550/560 Printer: It’s Time to Crossover
• The 5 Senses at drupa 2012: Best-of-the-Best Winners