Digital Print 2.0

I got a letter in the mail not too long ago from the car dealership that sold my wife her car. In this letter, they referenced what model and year her car was, and that it was 2 months from being paid off. The letter then went on to make us an offer on a brand new model of the same car at the same payment, plus they had a picture of the new car they were trying to sell me. Of course they knew all of this information because they had originally sold us the car, and written the financing for Chase right there. You know, it was a little tempting at first, picturing a brand new XC70 in our driveway.  In the end, Suzy loves her car and was not ready to give it up. But for a split second, they had me.

Every once in a while comes along a Killer App or something that is a game changer in different industries. In printing, there was the development of the offset press, then the desktop publishing Revolution….things that really changed the industry. The most recent and maybe the biggest of all is digital printing, and more specifically data driven, personalized messages designed to push our emotional buttons. We all know what digital printing is, digital printing 2.0 is all about what it can do.

The first phase of going digital in the print shop is to take work off of the offset presses that could be done quicker and more efficiently on a digital press. Next you start getting into personalization and variable data. Over the next couple of years, marketers are going to start targeting people’s specific interests with specific messages and images, and that will turn out to be a real game changer. But, we’ve all got a lot of figuring on strategies and then we’ll all have a big job getting our data clean and in order.

We’ve all seen what Kroger and Target (big companies, big budgets), can do with personalized campaigns and coupons (ever think it’s a coincidence that Kroger sends you specific coupons for exactly what you buy?) When done right, data driven, personalized printing can have a huge impact. Look at DunnHumby, who drives the data.

We are in the process of doing at least 5 different projects that involve a data driven message, and are designed to specifically make something happen. Over the next couple of months, we will be writing case studies on these, as well as sharing some successful case studies other people have done that are worth looking at, if for nothing else for ideas.

As our digital department grows and take on new capabilities, we’re taking the time to sit down and talk to our customers. How can we help them execute more successful marketing campaigns, fundraising campaigns, and in some cases, information gathering. You see, any of these actions become a lot more effective when you can tailor your message to who you are talking to.

We’ll be publishing a lot of new information, case studies, tips on what did and did not work, and of course some great success stories that arise out of all we are doing.