Written by Kathy Levinski, Director, Orange Door Direct, division of West Canadian Digital Imaging Inc.
Foreword written by Bill Michael
With the Xerox Best-of-the-Best Contest open and collecting exceptional work over the past few weeks, I couldn’t help but think of all the great submissions I’ve seen come through for the program over the years. As you can imagine, the entry period is much like Christmas for me, as I anxiously run down to the mailroom each day, bringing back with me a box full of stunning work submitted by our Premier Partners. The interesting variations of postage are proof that the work is literally coming from every corner of the globe. One package contains a fascinating cross-media campaign from Japan whose customized direct mailers were used to promote various dishes and specials at locations within the restaurant’s chain, while using QR codes to drive interested recipients to that specific location’s website. Another package contains a rich and colorful calendar from Mexico, beautifully spiral-bound and finished. In case you couldn’t sense it – I get very excited during the submission period as it allows me an opportunity to see all the terrific work being produced in our digital print industry!
One past submission that really made a strong impression on not only myself, but also our judges – as it was named a winner of the 2009 Best-of-the-Best Contest, was a self-promotional campaign created by orange door direct, a division of Calgary-based West Canadian Digital Imaging Inc. To generate leads and increase awareness of their capabilities to prospective customers, they produced a personalized die-cut door hanger campaign. Each door hanger featured creative personalization with clever messages, driving the recipient to their personalized URL to learn more. The door hanger was also practical, and by using it in their offices it allowed orange door direct to stay in the minds of these prospective customers.
I recently had a chance to speak at greater depth with Kathy Levinski (KL), Director of Orange Door Direct:
Xerox: Please give me some background information on your company. What would you like the readers to know about you?
KL: Orange door direct is an independent division of West Canadian Digital Imaging Inc. and has been providing strategic consultation, quality creative design, web design and development, photography and direct marketing services for the past few years. As a division of West Canadian Digital Imaging Inc., orange door direct is able to provide it’s customers with complete and integrated strategic, creative, data processing, printing and mail preparation services. We’re the one stop shop where clients can fulfill all of their direct marketing needs. Orange door direct has developed a niche in the Canadian market with their direct marketing capabilities. Whether the direct marketing campaign includes print, email and/or web, orange door direct provides an integrated campaign that drives response while increasing brand awareness. These responses are measured in real time and are built upon a database system that can pull automatic, tailored reports as well as send automatic email notifications and follow ups.
Xerox: What benefits do you see from participating in a program like this?
KL: Participating in the Xerox Best-of-the-Best program allowed us to create some national and international exposure for the way in which we use the XMPie personalization tools to create highly targeted and effective direct marketing campaigns for ourselves as well as for our clients. Creating personalized and relevant direct marketing campaigns is somewhat still in its infancy stage in Canada and therefore having an outlet to showcase our niche capabilities was extremely important for our creative team. We entered our self promotion direct marketing campaign (a series of 3 different mail drops each with a unique personalized URL) to showcase our work and were very excited to hear that we had won an award.
Xerox: How have you used your success in the program as a selling point for your company?
KL: We have included our success in all of our responses to direct marketing RFPs. We have used the case studies, provided by Xerox as an award winner, as handouts to potential clients and those that we have scheduled meetings for. We have even created larger-than-life sized door hangers and door knobs that hang in our office hallways. Our customers and potential customers see these door hangers on a daily basis as they tour the West Canadian facilities. It’s a fun reminder to our team and West Canadian of our success and of our mission to create personalized and targeted direct marketing campaigns that are unique in the marketplace.
Xerox: What has the reaction been like around the office upon learning of your submissions winning in the competition?
KL: There was a great deal of excitement for all the orange door direct team members when we learned that we had won the award. The award reinforced for the team that we were doing the right things. For West Canadian as a whole, it brought awareness to our executive and staff as to what orange door direct does and what we can offer for the West Canadian customer base. Since the award, we have seen the engagement of more West Canadian sales reps in selling direct marketing to their customers
