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My Business - March 2011:
10 Thousand Trees
Personalise your marketing
It’s now possible to create marketing material that names your customers, and marketers say this approach gets their attention.
Imagine if every advertisement you ever encountered was addressed directly to you, even naming you in its text? It’s not yet possible for ads to achieve that level of personalisation or mass customisation. But it is possible to do so with marketing material like direct mail, and the technology that makes it possible is shaking up the printing and marketing industries. “The printing industry is experiencing a big void,” says Kerim EI Gabaili, CEO of Prografica. “It is between the emergence of rapidly advancing technology and the marketing smarts to leverage it. Bridging that void has been a problem for printers and communicating the benefits of these changes to our clients has been a challenge.”
For EI Gabaili, who is a third-generation printer, the business is in the blood and pushing it into the digital age has been a challenging but satisfying pursuit.
In transforming his family printing business, Prografica, into one of Australia’s first full production agencies, EI Gabaili has set about trying to bridge that gap between technology and marketing.
The company is one of a new breed of marketing service providers (MSPs) that are evolving out of the traditional printing industry. Through a series of acquisitions, the company can now facilitate printing, merchandising, and a communications strategy, all in-house.
Squeezed between the pressures of strong commercial competition and the rapid digitalisation of the printing landscape, printers have been increasingly forced to take on the MSP role, which embraces a full spectrum of printing and marketing-related services. The emergence of new technologies that allow printers to tap into the power of mass customisation has also helped propel the move.
“Superfast technology will print 10,000 colour envelopes per hour.”
The strategy is not only about retaining and growing a customer base, but also helping the industry get through the effects of the GFC.
The GFC hit the printing business hard. EI Gabaili said that in 2009 his business witnessed a 25 percent drop in revenue overnight. “The GFC was a tug of war, as clients were in panic mode and needed an immediate response, in addition to clear ways to measure ROI ,” he says.
However, the uncertainty paved the way for the business of printing to be more creative and expansive, even if clients are taking time to follow suit.
Resistance is futile
For EI Gabaili, the newly styled business has not only picked up the slack on the GFC drop, but through his expanded ventures is now enjoying a high growth phase.
“As we emerge from the GFC we are seeing that companies are a little bit skeptical about trying new things, “ he says.
“There is still a lot of resistance. They tend to stick with what they already know, even if they are getting a lower response rate. Once we show them what is possible with mass customisation strategies, the proof is in the engagement.”
EI Gabaili says that while mass customisation gives SMEs all the benefits that bigger companies have been graced with in terms of scale, volume, price and creativity, it is an ongoing education process. Mass customisation is a strategy for improving profits while driving down the cost of variety.
Canon Australia Assistant GM, Product Marketing (Business), Jeremy Plint says Prografica is one of the leading examples of how a traditional printing company is integrating new technology and mass customisation into their product mix.
Print for the people
An emerging trend that is allowing smaller companies to get the full advantages of their bigger counterparts features a blend of sophisticated software, customer databases running at full tilt and advanced personalisation with both imagery and text.
Known as variable data printing (VDP), the technology allows for the production of highly customised documents via digital print technology of whatever volume with a specific message or graphic for each prospect.
Plint says that while VDP is not new, it has started to trickle down to small businesses as a mass-customisation tool that can be integrated into customer relationship management (CRM) systems that delivers a range of cost-effective benefits in a creative context. He adds that the technical aspects of implementing crossplatform marketing strategies are skills that printers are slowly acquiring.
A recent award-winning campaign for hotel chain Accor showcased the new integrated approach to direct marketing and the value of customisation. Three of the hotels needed a minimum of 50 new conference clients each that also needed to be qualified.
Prografica used a ‘high breed’ direct mail piece, incorporating variable data, image personalisation, e-wrap packaging and personal URLs sent to 1,400 contacts. The result was a well-designed invitation with a personalised message to each recipient, which pushed them to a personalised URL (PURL) where essential data was captured.
Following the campaign there was a 30 percent response rate, equating to 452 conference organisers, who spend $18 million annually.
The VDP technology allowed for the detailed personalisation of contact details, messaging and imagery to take place, targeted to each prospective client.
More direct mail
Before the advent of mass customisation , the DM campaign would have been sent out to a much bigger, untargeted volume of prospects, with basic personalisation and a limited impact for a call to action .
“With 60 percent of print DM ending up in the bin, marketers need to find ways to engage their client on sight, get past the bin, up those stairs and onto the table,” EI Gabaili says.
Analysts suggest that the biggest trend in printing in the next 12 months will be VDP.
Canon Australia’s Manager of Applied Technologies for Production Printing Systems Group, Will Parker says: “ It is certainly the next wave for printers, moving towards a marketing service provider model. But it requires a bit of technology and the smarts to drive it.”
He adds that the cross-media platform opportunities will be what drives innovation and creativity in the sector.
Meanwhile, technology advances continue to bring more options for end users.
One such disruptive technology innovator is US based , but Australian developed printing technology provider, Memjet, is currently nipping at the heels of the global titans of printing such as HP, Kodak and Canon. While the company doesn’t manufacture the printers itself, it sells its technology and components to manufacturing partners.
Memjet is one of the companies firing the mass customisation movement, targeting companies that print everything from food labels, coupons and direct marketing, to cash register receipts and providing technology that allows superfast, customised printing in any location.
Memjet’s core technology is controller chips, quality assurance chips, printheads, and ink and reference designs developed at Silverbrook Research of Sydney by Kia Silverbrook, a one-time Canon R&D director in Australia, who has spent decades expanding Memjet’s patent portfolio.
The company boasts that its superfast technology will print 10,000 colour envelopes per hour and at much lower price points than competitors.
One of the company’s visions is setting up Memjet-powered kiosks in hotel lobbies that allow guests to select from a raft of international newspapers and printing out a current edition in under two minutes.
“The technology gives you the freedom to print exactly what you want, when you want it, and where you want it, making near-line colour label printing possible for ‘just-in-time’ and other manufacturing operations. It also enables brand owners and manufacturers to move their label, tag, ticket, card and folding-carton printing out of a centralised print facility and directly onto their factory or warehouse floors,” Memjet Labels President Sean Marske said.
The company claims this emerging technology market is worth around $US250 billion, because the giants of print manufacturing have not spent much on research and development. By partnering with manufacturers, it aims to shake up printer customisation practices for end users in the areas of labels, office, photo kiosks, mini labs, and wide format.
While the technology allows printers to function far more efficiently than commercial batch printers, the key to Memjet’s technology lies in its capability to customise labels and other print jobs such as direct marketing, which would allow for integrated advertising opportunities or very targeted branding opportunities, such a regional customisation for food labels.
As more innovators enter the market, EI Gabaili says that the creative options for printers and marketers will continue to raise the bar in sophistication.
“Mass customisation has only just touched the tip of the iceberg of what is possible in terms of targeting, personalisation and custom branding.”
He adds that as the cost of equipment continues to come down just as the cost of digital print is coming down, more providers will offer greater levels of in personalisation and integrated software.
“Now when you use digital printing, volume is no longer a barrier. It makes the print process a lot more cost effective - we can do merchandise, the procurement side of brand management, CRM direct mail. This is just the start.”
Benefits of VDP and mass cutomisation
1. Targeted, personalised marketing
With 60 percent of direct mail typically trashed, providing a thoughtful, targeted message appealing directly to your client’s interest will grab their attention.
2. Leverages your customer data
New technology opens the possibilities for marketers to leverage one or multiple information databases to develop relevant and engaging communications that improve effectiveness of campaigns.
3. Promotes customer engagement
The motivation is to take action. Personalistion allows you to tailor the conversation. By compelling SMEs to use and update their databases, it promotes contact with clients to develop longer-term relationships and create detailed discovery of customer profiles.
4. Competitive differentiation
VDP allows marketers to bring added value to its messages, and set them apart from competitors stuck on static messaging.
5. Allows creativity to be king
A little bit of VDP can transform a tired direct marketing campaign into a ground-breaking piece of communication by using effective personalisation and customised imagery. Add the ability to target specific clients with offers that they are known to be interested in and integrate that into a Web-based call to action.
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