Many of the new cashless strategies will be based on Near Field Communication (NFC). When incorporated into a device such as a smartphone, NFC allows for encrypted data exchange between two devices, which are near to each other, i.e. your smartphone and a retail cash register. This is how the technology got its name – Near Field.

Shoppers who have their credit card information stored in their NFC-enabled smartphones can pay for purchases by simply waving their smartphones near or tapping them on the reader, instead of pulling out and handing the cashier their credit cards like in the soon-to-be old days.

The Internet has given us the ability to present a shopping experience of unlimited choices. If you’re planning to update or create a new online storefront, be sure your site is ready for the future.

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

Prediction One

 
Prediction Two
Email is here to STAY. While many consider email old school, it still does one WHALE of a job communicating. It may not be bleeding-edge, but it’s a tried and true marketing communication channel. When all is said and done, email still produces positive, cost-effective results, giving marketers an efficient way to connect with customers and prospects.

Prediction Three
With marketing channels growing in number and complexity, tracking results will become more important than ever. Your investments, both in technology and marketing, require you to gain a better understanding of which areas of your marketing mix are more effective than others. To get a sense in the coming year, and in subsequent years, you must set goals and put in place strategies that are aligned.

To ensure that your marketing efforts are more predictable, we suggest no matter which media channels work best for you, remember to always make sure your marketing message is clear, to the point and always includes the best way you can be reached.

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

Hologic, one of the world’s leading providers of health care solutions for women, wanted to develop a more efficient way for its customers to order marketing and promotional materials that help promote its services. At the time, hospitals and doctors’ staffs were calling the company directly to order materials or requesting electronic files to print locally. This often required a huge amount of time to fulfill the many requests that came through on a daily basis. When customers did print locally, their costs were often higher because of smaller quantities and at times, branding or print quality standards were compromised. Therefore, Hologic was seeking an alternative process that protected its branding requirements and reduced the costs of order processing. They decided to look into online solutions, which they felt was the only way their requirements could be met.

Solutions

Hologic selected us to develop and implement an easy-to-use web-enabled print and fulfillment store. The store, incorporated directly into Hologic’s corporate website, maintains the “look and feel” of their corporate branding. Customers can use either a major credit card or submit a purchase order for payment. The customer can also buy static or personalized items directly, as well as accessing digital file downloads within a secure environment. The digital file downloads include customizable templates for press releases, letters, technology white papers, and PowerPoint presentations to utilize for their marketing efforts. Customers are able to add their facility names and contact information to the personalized pieces while maintaining Hologic’s branding guidelines.

With the online store now in place, handling customer material requests is fully automated. Hospitals and doctors are now ordering personalized marketing and promotional collateral that includes the latest branded corporate promotional materials and product literature to promote their business development efforts. Within 3 days the order is shipped directly to the customer’s door. By providing an online store, Hologic reduced the time needed for program administration, maintained brand standards and reduced costs by streamlining production. Full visibility of program costs and activities for ROI and forecasting was achieved with comprehensive 24/7 reporting tools, along with a monthly status meeting. Most importantly, Hologic’s customers receive their materials efficiently, affordably and when they are needed.

Features/Benefits

• An easy-to-use web store with customized ordering capabilities to enhance customer experience
• Maintain branding  as determined by corporate guidelines
• Reduce waste leading to lower costs.
• 24/7/365 access to corporate materials from any location, through a secure centralized hub that supports print production, ordering, assembly, fulfillment, inventory management and distribution, reducing costs and streamlining logistics support.
• Cuts administrative overhead costs by reducing the time spent by internal administrative resources.

Customer Testimonial

“Audrey, President of Ferrante & Associates, worked with us to fully define our needs and budget requirements and assembled a ‘best in class’ team to design and implement our new web store for print and marketing collateral, order processing and fulfillment. Her attention to detail and strong communications skills proved invaluable to pushing the program to the success that it is.”

Nicole Athanas

Corporate Marketing Communications Manager,  Hologic, Inc.

Additionally, one of the marketing collateral pieces that is available on the web store is the “Hologic MammoPad Select Customer Program” which recently won the 2009 MM&M Medical Marketing and Media Gold and Silver Awards for Best Direct Marketing to Consumers and Healthcare Professionals. The integration of superior design and technology made this program a winner for all involved.

Congratulations Hologic!

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

What REALLY causes double digit response rates are strong messaging, great execution, and a well defined target market. The pURLs are only the enabler for the response from the initial outbound effort, whether it is using email or variable data print (VDP). The added value of the pURL is that it provides for the “real time” feedback on how the campaign is progressing, what the reaction is of the responder, and when you combine it with a response outbound such as email, it is a powerful tool for marketer to use to satisfy their customers’ goals for the campaign.

A cross-media campaign that includes print, email, pURLs, and social media can be a VERY powerful campaign…PROVIDED the messaging, execution, and market segment definition is well defined. Most people forget that it is NOT the media that makes the message, but it is the message that makes the success! Don’t be one of those who forget this.

By remembering these fundamentals, you can develop strategies and cross-media campaigns that can succeed beyond your wildest expectations.

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

First and foremost, it is important to understand that people have a certain bias towards, or against, the various media. Many people today will completely ignore any of the advertisements that are placed in the traditional print media, such as newspapers or magazines. Additionally, there are recent studies that indicate that banner ads are losing their impact. There was a study published in 2004 by “The Chartered Institute of Marketing” that determined that we are exposed to over 1,500 advertising messages every day. Is there any reason for us to assume that number is lower today? We think not! We have all developed a mental screening of these ads now and their effectiveness is declining accordingly. Determining how to be the “One” that gets through is the tricky part.

There are two key elements in any integrated marketing strategy: 1) Recognize that the goal is now to develop a “pull’ strategy instead of a “push” strategy. This means that it is important to incent the consumer to WANT to interact with you and not just shove the message into their face from every direction for the goal of developing brand awareness. This is where social media is becoming increasingly used; 2) Develop a workflow that makes it easy and quick for the consumer to interact and communicate during the response phase of the process. These two strategies recognize that people don’t have enough time, or attention span, and different people will use different media in the process. Some like email, others will only interact using the telephone, and still others will only use the internet as their response mechanism of choice. Therefore, your strategy should be developed using multiple media for both deploying the message and the response to the call to action. You must make the messaging more relevant to the individual to incent them to take the time. Once you include these elements in your strategy, you have a much better chance of succeeding at your goals.

Remember, recognize that people have many options to choose from when communicating and that their time is valuable, so the communications must be relevant and add value to their lives. The options have become almost endless, but a careful evaluation and definition of how your target market communicates will increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and help you meet the goals that you set…You do set goals, don’t you? But, that is a discussion for another day!

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

Print is still a viable solution for many marketing requirements, but we all have to think differently when we consider using it. A workflow, or shall we say strategy, that many use today is based on a more database driven implementation for both the print and web components. You probably have heard about personalized urls (pURLs), but you may not have leveraged this technology yet. Just to recap, a pURl is a microsite that is connected to a database and allows for the web pages to be dynamically reconfigured based on what is in the database or how the responder interacts with the microsite. Therefore, many campaigns are using variable data print (VDP) that includes a pURL for the recipient to go to as a response mechanism.  The internet will provide the responder the “immediate” interaction that a printed product can’t provide. According to the DMA, over 30% of people respond to direct mail by going online. And I could argue that this number will increase as more people use an integrated marketing strategy.

Bottom line is that direct mail is still viable and becomes a stronger solution when integrated with the internet. Both are here to stay, we just need understand the best way to use them together and how  consumers ultimately want to get their information and interact with your company. The two provide more value when used together than each can when they are used by themselves. I leave you with this thought…”Integrated marketing strategies are the ONLY strategies to use to grow your business opportunities!” To use any media as a standalone solution is short sighted and will limit your opportunities. It all becomes very simple when you start thinking like this. So, go forth, integrate and grow!

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

What print has to offer, that other media don’t, is the tactile sensation of the feel of the paper and specialized finishing techniques, the expanded color gamut with the use of special inks and color separation technologies, and the permanence of the media. People use print to show the value of their relationship to the recipient. Print and mailing cost more than sending an email to someone (if they get it through their firewall and/or spam filter!), therefore it must be more valuable…right? The perception in the market is an overwhelming YES! BUT….there is always a “but”….you have to ensure that the media is delivering a relevant message to the consumer. If the message has no connection or meaning to the consumer, then you might as well send an email.

The key is use print for what it is best for. Don’t waste your time and hard-earned money on a wasteful strategy such as “spray and pray”. That’s the old way and not the “smart” way of the future. We all need to be smarter on how and when we use the different media that are available to us today.

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

Mergers of vendors (or rumors of upcoming mergers…Heidelberg & ManRoland?) continue and will increase in frequency. Will the Big Three (Kodak, Fuji, Agfa) become the Big Two in 2010? Very possible…

Consolidation of the Print Service Providers (PSP) accelerates, but will provide a much needed cleansing of the market of both weak organizations and obsolete technologies.

Transitioning from a PSP to a Marketing Service Provider is harder than most thought, but many consider it critical for survival.

Shifting of marketing dollars to internet and electronic (Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Email) is growing, at the expense of traditional print methods.

Newspapers and magazines struggling in their transition to internet business model. Less will be more in the future.

Public concerned about maintaining their privacy on the internet and becoming more reluctant to provide personal information on the internet. This will impact ability to provide relevant information to the consumer.

Print runs continue to drop, forcing PSPs to become more efficient and automated. If they don’t, they join the dinosaurs.

Web-to-Print (Web-to-Ondemand-Print?) is becoming the preferred workflow for customers and PSPs.

Commercial printing moving closer to a commodity due to increased access to web-to-print solutions from retail focused organizations (Vistaprint, 48hourprint.com, Mimeo.com, Fedex/Kinko, etc.)

Web-to-Print becoming “Web-to-Everything” within the PSP’s workflow, continuing to confirm that web-based workflows are boss and it’s more than print when planning a communications strategy.

Print sales professionals are struggling with the transition to “Solution Selling”. Many won’t make it, but a select few will become “Stars”, when they think of helping their customers instead of selling to them.

Training for print professionals is not as readily available as it should be (more interactive web based solutions on the way!). Have we lost our ability to train for print due to reduced resources available and expansion of hybrid (offset and digital) and cross media workflows?

Inkjet grows in popularity as an imaging technology…thinking it will take market share away from silkscreen, offset and toner-based solutions. There are still some quality and speed issues, but those are slowly being overcome.

Wide format inkjet solutions growth accelerating. Marketers are learning how to best use the wide range of media available.

Personalized URLs do not guarantee success of a marketing program. It is best integrated with print component and automated email responses and alerts.

Integrated marketing solutions (print, email, web, video, etc.) are becoming the norm. An ONLY print strategy has become obsolete.

Book publishers are struggling with transition to eBooks and digital rights management is becoming a bigger issue.

Libraries are seeing increased usage due to the economy. Used for both access to print material (books, magazines, etc.) and to the internet for those who don’t have access at home.

United States Postal Service (USPS) is struggling with pension funding and reduced volumes while trying to break even (maybe even make some $$$). Trend will continue without RADICAL change in structure and service offerings.

Lots to think about when looking back and learning from the past as we move into the future. “The Times They Are a-Changin” and opportunities are everywhere, if you are willing to change with them.

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante

Print’s advantage to other media is the feel of the paper (or shall we say “media”, given the wide range of materials that can be printed on), the visual impact of expanded color gamut (using specialized inks and separation techniques), and the permanence of it (compared to electronic, which seems to be fleeting at best). We all have the pesky filing cabinets that we keep material in that we want to save for the future. By using specialty processes and materials, print can provide an experience to the recipient that no other media can provide.

While reviewing the holiday cards that we received during the holidays, the ones that used these specialized techniques were the more impactful and memorable. (BTW…over 58% of them were more that 4/C printing) We got a lot of email greetings, but very few were special in any way and were remembered even less at the end of the season. The printed holiday cards were openly displayed for all to see throughout the holidays. How many emails can you say that you did that with? NONE!

We know that holiday cards are a special print breed unto themselves, but you cannot disregard the impact that they had on you when you opened them. We expect to see an increased use of these specialized techniques with marketing collateral in the future. When the goal is to stand out from the crowd and get noticed, why wouldn’t you? Especially if you are promoting a high end product. One extra sale can easily provide the ROI that you must get from your marketing efforts.

Bottom line…Print will increasingly use specialized finishing and media to increase its impact on the recipient. It only makes sense…Use print in ways that other media cannot replicate. Integrating high value print with your electronic marketing efforts will give you the advantage that you need to grow into the future. Remember, it is a multi-media world and all media has its place!

Best of Days to You,

Audrey Ferrante