creative branding & marketing

Web design, graphic design, SEO, SEM and creative brand strategy thoughts to help you gain market share authored by the Metropolis Creative team and industry leaders.
1/24/09
Print Isn't Dead — Its Just Got A New Name
While the Internet has been making technological leaps and bounds, Print hasn't quite rolled over and given up yet. What's the best thing about Internet marketing? It can be personalized, which is a win-win situation for both the marketer and the consumer. Marketers already know what you're interested in so they give you more of what you want.

Well, we've forgotten that direct mail has been doing this for years, and it's pretty good at it too. Variable data printing just got sexy enough for even us web-heads. Imagine a piece (post card, brochure, or catalog) that could have customized images based on your profile. Now imagine that this piece could vary in page length and copy. Not just a word here or there, but entire formatted paragraphs. You can vary everything from the color of the type to the layout of a page. Variable type can even look like its been Photoshopped into an image.

Now imagine getting a marketing piece in the mail from a sports team that you have season tickets with, and your name is painted on the back of your seat in the stadium. Or getting a brochure from an auto dealership, with info and photos of the exact cars you test drove two days earlier. Or an invitation to a wine tasting with your name on the cork? Wikipedia, among others, claim, "The returns for variable printing vary from double the normal return at the basic level to 10-15 times the return for fully variable jobs." And these pieces might just find their way onto office walls and refrigerators as well.

I've just completed a four-day seminar in how to set up and use some amazing VDP software called Pageflex. As we get this system going, I'll keep you posted. In the meantime — check out what DirectSmile is doing. You won't believe it until you see it.

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posted by Michael_Flint at 10:19 PM

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Eric Salerno said...

This concept is spot-on. Red Ember has been learning more about Variable Data Printing, and how it can fit into a client engagement that involves marketing automation. Since MA often involves prospect profile development, a lot of the collected data can be used during the marketing process itself, not just handed off to the sales team. I have been trying to introduce the website-VDP integration concept (and the vast possibilities) to clients, but sometimes (as Michael understandably encourages us to do), you have to see it to believe it. DirectSmile's incredibly simple and fast tool to customize images is borderline mind-blowing, considering the quality. I actually thought to myself, "he must have had too much time at breakfast" when I saw the image, but that image took less than 10 seconds to create online! It immediately went into my "Cool Tools" bookmarks. Very exciting opportunities await all of us that embrace VDP. Now we just have to get the imagination juices flowing.

I do have a question though - and perhaps some more digging on my part would answer it, but since we're in the age of 10 second solutions, I figure asking here is more appropriate - does DirectSmile use Pageflex technology? Will Pageflex allow Metropolis to create similar images that can utilize variable data? Or will Pageflex simply do a better job of integrating variable data with website/DM services? - ok, that's three questions - I'll give you 30 seconds instead of 10 just to be fair.

February 18, 2009 12:09 PM  
Blogger Michael Flint said...

I've never used DirectSmile, but my understanding of it is that it can be used as a stand-alone solution, or be integrated into PageFlex as a plugin. Pageflex really has two strengths. 1) Its ability to create a variable data template, and 2) Its ability to create a storefront for ordering these templates. Its really a very robust program.

Pageflex alone doesn't create variable data images like the DirectSmile app. It uses variable data to load a different image, or a different block of type, or even change and adapt the layout to accommodate these variable items. The storefront application allows you to build a very simple or robust interface for ordering products. Then you can control what a user can do and see based on their log-in permissions. This is very useful if you users vary from in-house departments to the outside public.

They're two different tools, but combined they offer an amazing amount of customization. Of course, "Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should." I think a tool like this would be great for higher education admissions campaigns or entertainment & sporting events. Probably not so effective for some B2B markets where your audience and message is already very tightly targeted.

I'd love to hear about how others are using variable data marketing though!

February 19, 2009 9:05 AM  






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