2023: A Year of Highs, Lows, and Costly In-Betweens for the Print Industry

abstract of 2023 in blue background

Since 2014 I have shared an annual Manifesto in January to set the mission of print for the year, and a recap post in December to measure print industry success and reflect upon what we have learned along the way. The 2023 CMYK Manifesto focused on utilizing the power of print to safely and securely […]

Is This the Decade of Branding?

yellow cutout with letters that spell branding

The wide range of marketing skills and talents fall into two categories of people, Marketing Creatives and Marketing Technologists. Marketing creatives include branding specialists, designers, creative directors, content writers, and copywriters. While the creative side of marketing has always been critical, technical and analytical skills became more important with the rise of digital marketing. Digital […]

Are QR Codes Being Used Effectively In Direct Mail?

Are QR Codes and Direct Mail Effective in Marketing_print media centr-01

Last month’s Have QR Codes Finally Reached Their Glory Days? Blog post illustrated the resurgence of the QR code in marketing. When looking through my mail the other day I decided to take a look at how companies are using the QR codes in their direct mail. The following direct mails were analyzed from both […]

3 Proactive Plans for Productive Planner Prospecting

how to successfully work with meeting and event planners and win new business

Sometime during 2018 a woman walked up to me in the airport and struck up a light conversation about how often she sees me, and we compared our travel schedules while waiting for our pick-ups to arrive. I easily lost in who travels more, but I certainly consider myself a winner since our conversation turned […]

Lessons Learned from a Chic-fil-A Integrated Marketing Campaign

chic-fil-a integrated marketing campaign case study

Chick-fil-A Direct Mail Case Study – 10 Years Later I was just talking to a client this morning about using direct mail to drive consumers to retail stores and a Chick-fil-A integrated marketing campaign that I read about several years back came to mind. A quick web search surprised me that the campaign I was […]

Try a ‘Hail Mary’ Play for a Happy Holiday Sales Season

take risks to win big with customers and sales

Huddle up Printerverse! We have been inching our way down 2020 to the goal post and the end is in sight. All of our pivoting and re-planning and prospecting has gotten us here. Good job! Now, we can kick and take our chances to score a few immediate sales before time runs out, or we […]

Help Your Customers Improve Their Content Marketing Results with Print

print improves content marketing results

Content marketing started as an industry buzz word that has continued to gain popularity over the last decade. While it is usually associated with digital marketing, it is commonly accepted that John Deere’s print magazine The Furrow, in 1895. (No, that’s not a typo. Content marketing has been around for at least 125 years now.) […]

7 Tips to Grow Your Email Marketing Audience

seven tips to grow your email list

Over the past few months, we’ve discussed calendar based and behavior based email marketing. But there’s a classic chicken or the egg problem… how do you grow your list of emails in the first place? Use email capture forms to transform your website from a digital brochure into a lead generation tool. 1. Create landing […]

Five Important Questions To Ask Print Customers About Their Customers

top five questions to ask

In the previous Five Questions That Identify Print Solutions article we discussed the Awareness to Revenue process and ended with a list of questions to ask that help deliver print solutions. Now we’re doing a deep dive on these questions to show how they help solve your client’s problems. These five questions build on each […]

Getting Physical With The Digital Ether Takeover

Get-Physical-Print-Media-Centr

According to recent reports, Apple’s investors are urging the iPhone maker to help reduce smartphone addiction among children. While I don’t doubt smartphone addiction may be a thing at the moment, my own usage habits lead me to think this issue will be short-lived. When I’m at home, my smartphone stays on my desk. I […]

When it Comes to Marketing, The “I’s” Have It!

I-love-i- print media centr

Individualization is the first of my I’s – the most important part about any relationship in business and life is to recognise the importance of the individual and pay due respect to that status. It’s what the Internet age has brought us, the ability to pick out and highlight that relationship and deploy new ways […]