Printing starts with a farmed product (paper made from trees) and ends up with a recyclable product.  Printing is greener than many of us have been led to believe.

Printing, as part of a healthy market for forestry products, encourages landowners to plant and nurture trees.  In our country commercial tree famers plant three trees for every one they harvest.

Leaving aside how printing encourages foresters (which we deal with in another post) there are other reasons why printing is green—and maybe even greener than electronic communications.

Consider these statistics:

• 57% of  the paper consumed in the US is recycled, more than any other material
• The paper industry works constantly to push this percentage up
• 60% of the power used to make paper comes from renewable resources
• This is compared to less than 10% in manufacturing overall
• The paper a typical user consumes in a year is produced with only 500 kilowatt hours of electricity
• This is the same amount of electricity required to run one computer for 5 months
• The industry has worked to remove heavy metals and dangerous chemicals from the printing process
• Digital printing uses 100% nontoxic inks and toners

Printers encourage the use of recycled papers, and cooperate with independent auditors such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative to insure good forestry practices world wide.

They are doing their part to be a good environmental stewards.  What can you do to help?

One thing you can do is to use print wisely, a topic we address in another post.

Another simple step is to diligently recycle used paper.  According to the American Forest and Products Association, the average person recycles 360 pounds of paper per year.  This is good!  But it is only 82% of what the average person uses.   With industrial demand for recycled raw material constantly rising, all of us need to carefully recycle every scrap of used paper.

You can in good conscience print out this post if you want to pass it along.  Just make sure your recipients throw it in the recycling bin when they’re finished!

Sources:

www.paperspecs.com  2009

www.dynamicgraphics.com  2005

www.dmaresponsibility.com

For more information contact:

Sherry Mitchell

919-695-5676

sherry@laserimagenc.com

QR codes are a kind of bar code that links a smart phone to a website via a scanning app on the phone.  Adding a QR code to a printed piece gives your customers access to product information at the moment the customer wants it, and gives you a chance to gather valuable market intelligence.

Everyone’s curious about QR Codes, those little maze-like squares that are starting to show up on ads, signs and product packaging.

What are QR codes?  How do they work?  What do they do for the marketer and for customers?

What QR Codes Are

QR (Quick Response) codes are similar to the inventory and postal bar codes we’re familiar with, but with important added advantages.

Like the common bar code, a QR code is machine-readable text.  But QR codes:

1. carry much more information
2. can be branded
3. are trackable
4. are readable by smart phones, a device many of us carry most of the time

A “smart phone” is any phone with a camera and a browser to connect it to the internet.  If your phone has these features, all you need is an app to read QR codes.  Apps come pre-installed on most major phones, or can be downloaded for free.

How QR Codes Work

You use your phone to scan QR codes from any print medium your phone can photograph, whether an ad, package, catalog, sign, poster, business card, magnet or even a billboard.

Suppose you see a QR code on an ad or the packaging of a product that interests you, a code that is well-designed with the marketer’s logo, and accompanied by text explaining how to use it.  What happens when you scan it with your phone?

Most of the time you are immediately connected to a custom microsite optimized for mobile devices.  This microsite lets the marketer inform you with additional product information, at the very moment you’re interested in reading it.

The marketer could also provide you via the microsite a calendar of events, contact information, an email address, an SMS text message, a dealer locator, or other directional information. The marketer may also download coupons or discount offers to your phone, if you grant permission.

QR Codes Gather Market Intelligence

Equally important, as you’re doing this, the marketer is learning more about you as a customer, via the trackability feature of the code.

The marketer may learn the store or other location where you scanned the code, as well as the time of day and date you scanned it.  This information allows the marketer to evaluate the scope and effectiveness of the campaign, and to plan better campaigns for the future.

QR codes connect print to the Internet.  The flexible back and forth of information between marketer and customer via this connection is the key to QR codes’ value.  QR codes afford the marketer an unprecedented opportunity to tell the customer more, right when the customer is motivated to learn more, and at the same time capture valuable information about the customer’s behavior, so as to better communicate with him or her in the future.

For more information contact:

Sherry Mitchell

919-695-5676

sherry@laserimagenc.com

Digital print-on-demand is a production process that lets you order manuals and brochures online in quantities you need at the moment, and have the output delivered directly to your end-users. This eliminates administrative cost and hassles, while saving time, space, materials and money.  It’s good for the environment, too.

Do you order manuals or brochures in long print runs, only to be confronted with the hassle of storing and distributing them?  Do you ever throw away expensive pre-prints because your needs, address or messages change?

How does this affect your time?  Your budget?  The environment?

How Digital Print-on-Demand Works

Imagine the on-demand production alternative.  Instead of pre-printing:

• Store materials in an online Document Library at your printer’s facility
• Update them easily by sending new files via a password-protected Customer Portal
• Print them only as needed, ordering anytime in any quantity on your Portal
• Maintain few or no pre-prints in physical storage
• Throw away nothing
• Produce materials in black & white or full color, flat, folded or bound into manuals
• Have orders delivered to your office, show,or  customers

Efficiencies of Digital Print-on-Demand Benefit You and the Environment, Too

Doesn’t this sound like a better way to do things?  Well it is.  Switching from long-run to digital print-on-demand can save you a lot of time and money.

It also has important environmental benefits.  Consider the question of whether it’s wise to de-emphasize printing in favor of electronic communications.

The idea behind this question is that sending PDFs over the Internet or printing information on CDs will save trees and thus be easier on the environment.

As we’ve discussed in other posts, if you want to preserve forests, make sure the nation’s tree farmers, who typically plant more trees than they harvest, have a market for their product.  Otherwise tree farms will be deforested as farmers convert properties to more profitable uses such as  agriculture, grazing or development.  Printing plants trees.

As we’ve also discussed, the Internet is a huge consumer of electricity, much of it from coal-powered plants.  Internet traffic has a gigantic ecological footprint of its own.  And it does nothing to promote management and enlargement of forests.

When we’re asked whether it’s environmentally sounder to use print or electronic communications, we recommend that your best approach is to always seek the most efficient process that suits your purpose, regardless of which medium you use.

When you think it’s best to print, on-line ordering and print-on-demand is a powerful way to gain efficiency.  Printing what you need when you need it removes the guesswork from the ordering process, so it conserves power and materials.

Waste not.  It’s better for your budget.  It’s better for the planet.

Around 31% of printed material goes obsolete and is thrown out, straining organizational budgets and creating huge waste.      CAPVentures, April 2003

For more information contact:

Sherry Mitchell

919-695-5676

sherry@laserimagenc.com

Online ordering and digital printing take the pain out of managing business cards, while giving you brand and purchasing control.

Are you looking for a simpler and faster way to order business cards?  Consider switching to the digital printing option.

If you’re the person responsible for ordering business cards for your organization you know what a pain it can be if you rely on a conventional (non-digital) printing process.

First you have to gather information from the person requesting cards.  Then you send it to the printer.  Then you wait to approve a proof.  Then the printer wants more cards to run so he can “gang’ them to optimize his press.  Then, a week or two later, your order is delivered.

Costly, aggravating, time-consuming.

In contrast, many digital print shops have an easy-to-use feature on their websites that lets anyone in your organization

• input name, phone numbers and other card data
• immediately view a composed proof, and
• click to place an order

Your digital printer runs these orders individually, because digital presses don’t require ganging of multiple names for a long print run.  Then he cuts the cards out and delivers them, usually within 48 hours.

Quick, slick, fast.

There are many more benefits to this business card printing process, which we at Laser Image call VersaDoc.   Some of the most important are:

• Brand control.  Even if you have a large, dispersed work force, all your cards are printed in one shop with established standards.
• Purchasing control.  Prices are set in advance and you get reports on who orders what, when.  You can preset quantity limits so your people don’t over-order.
• Always open.  Your people can place online orders at their convenience.
• No software to install.  The easy-to-use order-entry system is housed on your printer’s server.

For more information about the VersaDoc business card process, contact:

Sherry Mitchell

919-695-5676

sherry@laserimagenc.com

If used improperly, personalization may irritate or offend recipients.

Banking and brokerage customers might appreciate personalized portfolio reports offering additional investment advice, but only if the information arrives concealed in a sealed envelopes.

Mothers might appreciate a timely message about toys or diapers, but may not want their child’s name and age publicly displayed on the mailer.

Personalization isn’t about using everything that you know about your recipient. It’s about the appropriate use of information to increase relevance.

2. Test everything

Some personal data may be relevant to your offer, some may not. If you want to sell minivans to young families, it may not be worth it to switch out depictions of male and female drivers on your mailer according to the sex of your recipients. Just showing the product posed with a family could to the trick.

To make sure about such things, you have to test. Testing is easy, given the flexibility of digital printing and email. If your campaign involves sending out 6000 pieces, try varying one element in 500 of them to see if this affects response, and whether it is cost-justified. Make testing and control groups part of your thinking.

3. Employ multiple media

Studies show that campaigns do better when they deploy email, direct mail and websites in strategic combinations.

Neiman-Marcus, for example, gets most of its sales online. But those sales are prompted by print catalogs. When catalog volume declines, online sales go down.

A study by the US Postal Service demonstrated that websites supported by catalogs showed a revenue life of 163% compared to unsupported websites.

So think in combinations: mailings preceded by email announcements, or followed by email reminders. Mail and email that encourages people to visit websites or personal microsites. There is strength in numbers.

4. Invest in your database

This takes time and sometimes money, but it’s the best investment you can make. A database is like a living thing. It requires continuous nourishment in the form of updating, cleansing, adding variables and so on. As you gain new information through personalized marketing, it’s imperative that this knowledge be entered into your database to inform future programs. The great benefits of personalized marketing can only be maximized through such effort.

Sherry Mitchell
919-696-8791
sherry@laserimagenc.com

“Personalization” is meaningless if it isn’t relevant to the recipient.  The best practice is to first segment your list, then add personalization to the segmentation.

If you want to increase sales of sporting goods to established customers, first segment your list according to your customers’ activities: tennis, golf, cycling, running and so on.  Then send communications to each segment, with an offer related to their interests, and personalize the communication with other things you know about them, such as their name, how long they’ve engaged in their activity and so on.

Personalization increases responses beyond what good segmentation might produce, but it must be tied to relevant messages.

2. You don’t have to mail to your whole list.

Unless there’s good reason to mail to your entire list, consider approaching the subset that would most likely respond to a particular offer.

If you are a retailer interested in boosting year-end sales, you might want to communicate with customers who are in the top 25% spending bracket.  If you’re interested in broadening your customer base, you might approach the bottom 25%, with an offer designed to increase their involvement with you.

Thinking tactically like this controls your costs and increases your campaign ROI.  Keep in mind that unlike conventional printing, digital printing doesn’t require long press runs, so it’s feasible to communicate strategically with smaller groups.

3. Forget “cost per piece mailed”

This is a holdover from the old days of mass, generic mailings printed on conventional presses.  The idea was to manipulate piece design and press run length to minimize production costs in the hopes of profiting from the low returns such campaigns usually generate.

Think instead in terms that measure the return to your campaign. “Cost per lead,” “cost per response,” “revenue per sale,” or ROI are much better metrics.

4. Measure everything

Oddly, we find that few marketers do this.  Most have no idea what return they get from their magazine ad or radio spot.  They operate of faith, rather than statistics.

Good marketing decisions and continuous improvement require that you track everything: data costs, design costs, mailing costs.  Build in redemption codes and other mechanisms so you know who responded to your offer.  Then at the end of the campaign sit down and analyze costs and returns against your campaign goals.  Figure out your return and how you might do better on your next campaign.

Remember, by their nature direct marketing campaigns provide you all the data you need to do this.  So be sure to record it and think about it.

Sherry Mitchell
919-696-8791
sherry@laserimagenc.com

We understand that after writing and designing your book, you’re eager to see the final product.  We know many of you have pending book signings or conference dates you’re urgently preparing for.

That’s why we built our process for speedy production, with proofs sent within 24 hours, and most orders completed and shipped within a few days from proof approval.  Here are some simple steps you can take to help us meet your deadlines.

• Check and approve your proof immediately. We cannot begin production until you do this.
• Send us your cover design first. This gives us a jump-start on your deadline. We can print and laminate your covers while you finish final edits and proofs.
• Send us your application (word processor) files as well as PDF files. With the application files in hand we can make last minute changes you may require without interrupting production.
• Call or email me with your questions early in the process. An answer today can save hours tomorrow.  I’m always here to help.

Have other questions about your project?  Please contact me any time.

919-361-5822 ext 230
800-644-5822 ext 230
miked@laserimagenc.com

Have you considered which paper stocks to use to print your book? Here are my recommendations.

Unless the nature of your work requires something special, keeping it simple will keep your price down and your quality up.

We offer many stock choices. But for most projects we recommend 100# cover gloss for your cover and a 24# text for your text pages.

• The 100# cover gloss (with the standard gloss or matte laminate added) will give your cover a durable feel and a great look!
• The 24# text is bright white and has a very high quality feel to it. It is thick enough to have good opacity.

Of course we can print on many, many stocks, and we’re glad to use whatever you think best meet your requirements. (Keep in mind, though, that any stock you choose must be certified for use in digital presses.) I can send you swatches and help you consider alternatives.

Sticking with my recommendations above will help us produce for you a timely and cost-effect product.

Have other questions about your project? Please contact me any time.

919-361-5822 ext 230
800-644-5822 ext 230
miked@laserimagenc.com