Print In Motion: Cross-Media Magic

For print service providers looking to integrate their print and electronic media offerings to implement cross-media marketing campaigns, there is no better place to be than at GRAPH EXPO 15. The annual Chicago event plays host to the full suite of technologies necessary to deliver multi-vehicle campaigns, including print, mobile, email, and Web, to deliver the right message at the right time to the consumer.

Print has been, and remains, at the heart of these campaigns, but over the last several years personalized URLs (PURLS), personalized videos, variable data, and mobile technologies have all come to play a role as well. Print Service Providers (PSPs) who can effectively and seamlessly tie all these channels together into a single campaign are the ones who will see the most success and growth today and in the years to come.

“Cross-media today is the integration of several platforms—both print and digital—using a variety of tactics to communicate brand messages,” says Shelley Sweeney, Xerox Vice President/General Manager, Service Bureau/Direct Mail Sectors. “The evolution of cross-media has made it important to create messages that reach consumers on a personalized level, as well as reach a wider audience in a streamlined fashion. Print still plays an effective role in the communications mix, as direct mail is 30 times more likely to deliver a response than email, and it accommodates the growing demand for more complex personalization. Cross-media may be changing, but print remains an effective component of the marketing mix.”

“Cross-media is the ability to reach consumers across all media channels with consistent messages that are relevant to the individual recipient in terms of content, presentation, timeliness, and channel,” says Judy Berlin, XMPie Vice President, Marketing. “Cross-media is one of the best ways to reach customers, and coupled with personalization, it has the ability to engage with the customer and develop a lasting connection. Today, cross-media campaigns come in all shapes and sizes, but one key component is the integration of print.”

The term “cross media” is one that has seen quite a bit of confusion, debate, and change over its short lifespan. For today’s PSP, trying to nail down not only what the term means, but the solutions it encompasses, can be more than a little frustrating and confusing.

 “One of the things we think is really exciting is that the industry is moving past defining the term, and is now starting to discuss the actual value and features,” says Charlotte Tueckmantel, EFI General Manager, Web-to-Print & Value Add Products. “They are focusing on how to deliver on their promises instead of debating on what cross media is. A few years ago it was a basic definition, with the PURL as the high hurdle, and we have been excited to see printers embrace it. Today, PURLS are a minimum requirement for cross media campaigns. Social media is next hurdle, and it is fast becoming the next channel requirement for a campaign. Other trends PSPs need to be very aware of include real-time messaging and content—they have to look at where audience is today and create content that is relevant. It needs to be location based and include social media, PURLS, and relevant landing pages at a minimum. Location-based marketing in particular is one of the exciting trends, integrating messages relevant to end customers based on their location.”

Data, in particular, is going to be an area that printers will need to embrace more fully than they are today. Consumers today expect marketing to be sophisticated and relevant to them, individually, and PSPs will need to continue to find ways to use both the data they are provided and that generated by the campaigns themselves to more finely tune the messaging. Campaigns that cross multiple channels and target the same consumers in ways that are appropriate to the medium will increasingly become more necessary.

“The digital world is impacting each of us in more ways we can count, but one way that’s obvious is changing customer expectations around how they receive information,” stresses Annette McCrary, Director of Strategic Marketing, Ricoh Production Printing Business Group, Ricoh Americas Corp. “A combination of mail, email, and other channels is now essential to reach customers in a meaningful, captivating way. This is partially fueled by big data—information that allows marketers to develop targeted, personalized campaigns. The more printers embrace big data applications and processes, the more they will be able to expand their capabilities for their customers, giving them access to the kind of information needed to customize every campaign down to individual pieces, and to easily incorporate multi-channel and cross-channel (media) elements into each campaign.”

Cross Media at Graph Expo

At the show this year, there are a variety of cross media solutions to explore.

EFI (Booth 1902) is showing its MUST SEE ‘EMS award winner, DirectSmile version 7, at its booth. The software solution integrates with the rest of the company’s wide portfolio of products, allowing PSPs to customize the solution to their goals and their customers’ needs. DirectSmile offers features such as social media integration, location-based content creation and, notes Tueckmantel, “it really embraces print as a key connective component.”

For Ricoh (Booth 1231), the cross media focus is on its 1to1 Create Marketing Services, which are powered by PTI Marketing Technologies, a cloud-based subscription service aimed to help PSPs create, launch, track, manage, modify, and optimize cross-media campaigns. The solution was a MUST SEE ‘EMS winner at last year’s event, is, says McCrary, and it is a “low-cost, high-return solution with a simple and direct workflow that helps print and marketing service providers offer more value-added services such as design and VDP at prices substantially lower than their competitors, and in less time.”

Xerox (Booth 613) this year has themed its entire booth around “Just Let the Work Flow,” with cross media solutions a part of that conversation. FreeFlow Digital Publisher, in particular, “enables the prepress operator to produce print and multi-channel content with the simple submission of an input PDF file. Xerox continues to be a leader in the industry by offering this unique ability to print and publish in a single workflow,” says Andre Blaakman, Xerox Marketing Manager, GCO/GCBG/Workflow & Solutions. “Complementing the technology’s original on-site configuration are two additional configurations that take print and digital content production automation to the next level—in the cloud. The new cloud configuration works the same as the on-site version, but offers an alternative way to implement the solution via the cloud, with lower startup costs and faster deployment. The new ePublishing configuration is also cloud based, but offers digital and mobile content production capabilities only—great for print service providers that want to start offering new digital and mobile services but don’t want to revamp their print production workflow.”

XMPie  (Booth 613), a business unit of Xerox, is demoing PersonalEffect 8.0, the latest version of its personalization software. The new version brings the ability to integrate the latest mobile and Web technologies into a campaign while still ensuring the personalized print components sync up perfectly. The company has also brought new integrations with its cloud-based Circle technology and PersonalEffect uProduce server, for a more unified user experience across the board.

Cross media promotions are fast becoming what end consumers expect in their marketing materials. They want messages to sync up across their various platforms, and they want the opportunity to interact with brands on the platform and channel of their choosing at any moment in time. For PSPs, finding ways to integrate these services into the print campaigns, and make it seamless and painless for the brands creating the content, is key to the future of the industry.

“The opportunity here is to reach consumers through simple, focused content,” says Sweeney. “Getting your message noticed in today’s oversaturated media world is an ongoing challenge. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work, so successful marketers need to focus on relevance and personalization in order to cut through the clutter. If you create meaningful, engaging content, then there shouldn’t be distraction; and your customers will clearly see your content in all channels.”