Making Marketing Work

April 30, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

I’ve talked a lot in this column about the benefits of applications like personalized URLs. In my last post, I specifically encouraged readers to look into them for their own marketing. Now it’s time for a word of caution.

Like any marketing tool, PURLs don’t generate response. Recipients won’t log into a PURL just to log in. Too many marketers make the mistake of thinking that the novelty of receiving a PURL, in itself, will motivate recipients to action. (They make the same mistake with other full-color 1:1 printing applications.) Consequently, they are surprised and disappointed with the results.

Just like any other marketing program, in order for PURLs to pay dividends, the creative, the offer, and the hook must all be well matched to the recipient base. In ...Read More
Industries: Sales and Marketing

April 25, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

What does it mean to bring your printing into the 21st century? To get it out of the mire of 1990s thinking? One of the ways marketers can do this is with personalized URLs.

These applications use the technological capabilities of digital printing to print a personalized URL on each mailer (www.janesfurniture/bobsmith). This URL takes recipients to a personalized landing page, where they are greeted by name and the information can be tailored to them.

Most of these mini-sites have a common structure. They include the personalized landing page, a survey page where respondents are generally asked to take a brief survey to provide more information for future marketing efforts, a main information page, and a thank you page. Once logged in, visitors’ movements can be tracked, so marketers can see which pages they view and where they spend the most time....Read More
Industries: Sales and Marketing

April 21, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

I got hit by a bit of nostalgia this week. When I first started covering the printing industry, it was 1993. I was the editor of Printing News and the cover story was the installation of a pair of the first Indigo E-Print digital presses, now the HP Indigo series of machines. At the time, printers were required to buy them in pairs, but adventurous printers did. The cover photo was some kind of piano-moving equipment lifting them high into the air to be installed at a non-ground-level printing location.

How times have changed. At that time, you could count the number of digital press models on one hand. Distinguishing them was easy. One was rollfed. One was sheetfed. One was from Agfa. The other two were from companies no one had ever heard of.  Today, the ability to rattle off...Read More
Industries: Sales and Marketing

April 11, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (3)

At the end of March, Amazon rocked the publishing world by announcing that, if authors and POD and subsidy publishers wanted to continue to stock their books, they would have to set up an account with Amazon’s in-house book printing unit BookSurge.  Authors and publishers were incensed.

How dare Amazon do such a thing! Amazon was clearly discriminating against POD publishers, using its market monopoly to line its pockets, and wresting away the control that authors and publishers have over their own businesses.

I’m a small publisher, and when I heard Amazon’s announcement, I was offended, too. It meant adding another supplier, and based on the negative industry buzz, I was concerned about being forced to accept less-than-desirable quality, poor customer service, and having to take the time to re...Read More
Industries: Sales and Marketing

April 4, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

For the last year or so, Richard Romano and I have been blogging here for the industry research firm The Industry Measure, sharing industry insights, trends, ideas, and cheeky comments. As of April 1, however, the Industry Measure has officially shut its doors, although its reports will still be available for sale on the Industry Measure website for the next few months.

This doesn’t mean that Expert Business Source readers be rid of us. Richard and I will continue to blog here, offering the same industry insights, industry analysis, and cheeky comments under our own names. We will also be continuing to offer special reports, newsletters, and other products covering the new media and printing marketplaces that will be available from us directly.

The details are still being worked out. In the meantime, ...Read More
Industries: Sales and Marketing