56 ■ October 5, 2010 • GRAPH EXPO
Official Show Daily • Cygnus Graphics Media
Got Online Personalization? A
Web-to-print personalized solutions reap gains for printers
By John Arnsdorf, Product Marketing Manager, XMPie Inc.
dding Web-to-print services to your offerings can not only bring convenience and control to document approval, order-
ing and brand management, but can also open the door to added revenue and growth. In fact, Web-to-print is emerging as the preferred approach to the market- ing and sales environment. Web-to-print can bring your variable data print or cross-media marketing oper- ation to the Internet via storefronts and marketing portals. E-commerce sites are on-line stores, complete with integrated shopping cart, payment processing and shipping capabilities, which allow your customers to browse, select, customize and order dynamic print documents and e-mail campaigns. In contrast, market- ing portals give customers, franchisees and internal sales teams access to brand- ed, customizable marketing collateral through corporate branded sites. Both make it possible for anyone to create customized literature from an online tem- plate, approve a PDF, upload a mailing list, and send it all to a print and fulfill- ment partner.
One of the biggest advantages of Web- to-print is that you do not need to manu- ally work with each order, since it is automatically generated through the Web, thus reducing labor costs while producing more work. And you can set up auto- mated, lights-out production—24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Choosing a solution Once you decide to adopt this on- demand, online technology, it is impor- tant to choose a solution that provides an interactive customer experience and has a flexible architecture that allows for extending its capabilities. This might include additional modules, including integrations with shipping companies and data providers, or the ability for custom integration with third party appli- cations like workflow management soft- ware and CRM, MIS and DAM systems. When choosing a solution, one should also keep in mind how product templates are created and managed. They should be easy to edit and modify. Finally, your Web-to-print solution should also be able to deliver items other than print, such as e-mail, downloadable PDFs, or tangible products like t-shirts and mugs. With Web-to-print, print providers,
creative agencies and corporate market- ing departments can put the power of personalization in the hands of their customers and employees. For Traxion, the digital communications and market- ing services division of privately-held Sells Printing Company LLC in New
Berlin, WI, this proved to be a key to their success.
Sells Printing, established in 1916, is
the Milwaukee area’s sixth largest com- mercial printer. The company opened its Traxion division in 2008 after seeing a new revenue opportunity—providing one-to-one, digital marketing services, becoming a one-stop shop for their mar- keting communications needs. One of Traxion’s first customers, Lentz Design, provides personalized marketing materials to real estate agents through a Web portal. Lentz enables agents to cre- ate and produce postcards for promoting the properties for sale. Ease of use and compelling creative were important to Lentz, and the company needed help in implementing its vision for a new real- tors’ storefront that would be easier for agents to use, and more customizable for responding to market shifts.
Introducing new functionality Traxion developed a new Lentz Design
Web ordering system that retained the existing storefront’s look and feel, while introducing new functionality that made ordering faster and the Lentz site more user-friendly for agents. Lentz’s site now offers full customization and personal- ization capabilities and exciting, new, dynamic postcards with personalized images branded “The Wow Factor.” For example, targeted recipients’ names can appear on street signs, drawing their attention to a message about a new home on the market.
Agents can also now upload mail- ing list files, and the site automatically matches the data to the proper fields online. Previously, agents had to down- load a template to manually populate and upload recipient data, which added significant time to the ordering process. The storefront has delivered for both
Lentz Design and Traxion. Lentz cus- tomer orders that previously took sig- nificant time to execute online are now completed in as little as five minutes, improving customer satisfaction. The system is also flexible enough now to enable site changes in just days, help- ing Lentz Design continually refine the types of postcard designs offered. Print volume has increased due to the speed and ease-of-use improvements, and the popular “Wow Factor” has generated order volumes as high as 27,000 pieces. Traxion now has 13 customer storefronts serving more than 28,000 users and driv- ing a substantial portion of the division’s print business, which doubled from 2008 to 2009.
So whether you’re a shop looking to
make the transition from a traditional offset printer to a marketing services provider, or a large enterprise looking
to maintain brand consistency while capitalizing on local channel marketing opportunities, consider offering a lead- ing edge Web-to-personalized-print solu- tion. Being able to deploy e-commerce enabled sites or marketing portals that allow for document customization and ordering regardless of media is the key to a competitive business model in this ever-changing industry. Web-to-print takes significant time, effort and cost
out of the ordering process, leading to an increase in print volume, improving the customer experience, and increasing customer satisfaction and retention. While at GRAPH EXPO, there are
many seminars touching upon these sub- jects, such Web-to-print, variable data printing, one-to-one digital marketing, and multi-channel marketing campaigns. Please see the sidebar for further informa- tion on these GRAPH EXPO seminars.
GRAPH EXPO EDUCATION
GRAPH EXPO 2010’s Conference Program offers more than 50 timely sessions in over 20 education categories that will deliver the information you need to move your busi- ness forward. Below are a few select sessions focusing on marketing campaigns.
Tuesday, October 5 FREE EXHIBITOR PRESENTATIONS 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
Selling Customized Communications Room S403ab Aaron Hale, Marketing Specialist, Canon Business Solutions In today’s market consumers are demand- ing more efficient and effective marketing and business communications. They need single-source providers who deliver value- added services on time, at a fair price with improved ROI.
What does this mean for today’s graphic com- munications provider? Winning business re- quires real business acumen, a shift in selling techniques and effective pricing strategies.
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm Secrets of Successful Mailing Room S404bc Chris Giles, Vice President, Solutions and Competitive Marketing, Pitney Bowes While some printers have ventured into mail- ing and are expanding their sources of rev- enue, others are still sitting on the sidelines, contemplating the “right way” to begin. In this session, Chris Giles will demonstrate how easy it can be to incorporate mail ser- vices into your service offering and generate new revenue streams for your business. Plus, he will share some nitty-gritty ways to add extra value for your customers if you’ve already taken the plunge into mail services. If you mail anything, or are thinking of mailing, don’t miss this “tricks of the trade” session on how to save money and mailing tips to share with your customers, to help make your services invaluable.
PAID SESSIONS 8:30 am – 10:00 am ROI Straight-Talk on Digital Documents: Static vs. VDP; How to Measure Successful VDP, Room S404bc John Leininger, Professor of Graphic Com- munications, Clemson University What is the ‘VDP difference’…and how do you prove it to a new customer, or reinforce the ROI (return on investment) of a VDP project to current customers? This timely session will provide you with the ‘take- home’ tools you need to build a Variable Data campaign that can be tracked and analyzed to demonstrate for customers the real ROI you can deliver with VDP.
8:30 am - 10:00 am One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Picking the Right Marketing Mix for Your Company, Room S503ab Lisa Rawa, Vice President, Marketing, Print- ing Industries of America You are a printer, but not necessarily a marketing wizard. Now the time has come to develop and execute a marketing approach for your company…but with so many marketing tools and options avail- able, where do you begin? In this essential session, it will be strategy first, tactics next, during this plain-talk presentation about the basic elements of promotion. Here you will learn how to begin, and the importance of tracking your incremental success. Based on real-life examples, you will ‘live through’ other companies’ celebrated successes— and learn how to avoid their marketing nightmares! Bonus: you will depart this session armed with a sample step-by-step printing company marketing plan.
11:00 am – 11:55 am Xplor Document University Technology Applications and Their Use in Multi-Channel Marketing Campaigns, Room N426a
Scott Baker, Vice President of Business Development, GMC Software Technology One of the biggest challenges when evaluating software solutions for effective multi-channel marketing campaigns is the dizzying array of technology available for both enterprise or print service providers. From composition through data manage- ment, workflow and output, deciding on what you need and when can stymie even the most aggressive evaluations. Scott Baker, Vice President of Worldwide Business Development at GMC Software Technology will break down the evaluation process and guide attendees into making the right deci- sion and investments.
Wednesday, October 6 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm Xplor Document University Let the Tool Do the Work, Room N426a Denise Miano, EDP, President and CTO, NEPS This presentation will address today’s lead- ing tools, with particular emphasis on how these tools work most efficiently as part of an integrated system.
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