Business Management - Marketing/Sales

MANY, MANY years ago, when we had no chores, when we weren’t in church, or when we weren’t building barrels or making wagon wheels, we would play tic tac toe or connect the dots by the light of the one bulb in our ceiling.

HAVE YOU added one-to-one communications or variable data printing to your portfolio of offerings yet? Although we have been talking about variable data printing as a value-added service for a decade now, adoption rates have been slower than the pundits projected. But that all seems poised to change.

Stretching every marketing dollar will be the name of the game in 2009, as organizations look to cut costs while marketing budgets shrink. This webinar, part two in the three-part "Thrive! in 2009" webinar series, is designed to share information on helping customers maximize return on investment for every dollar spent. It will feature key findings from InfoTrends recently-completed a study titled, Multi-channel Communications Measurement and Benchmarking.  As part of the study, more than 200 marketing professionals were surveyed about strategies for marketing communications in 2009.

In this webinar, Barb Pellow, Group Director discusses the customized, targeted solutions that marketers are looking for in a difficult economy.  A number of print service providers join Barb to discuss how they have leveraged digital technology and delivered customized communications solutions to not just recession proof, but actually "grow" their businesses in a challenging economy.

Click here to view this webinar today!

Click here for information about the other webinars in the Thrive! In 2009 webinar series!

ARLINGTON, VA—Print Buyers Online.com and PCPI will host their eighth annual Print Oasis 2009 Print Buyers Conference & Exhibit (www.printoasis.com) on May 17-19, 2009, at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix. This year’s conference will provide educational programming featuring actionable advice from top print buying pros focusing on "Beyond Surviving, Thriving with Print in Tough Times."

WILL I EVER grow up? I’m beginning to think it ain’t happenin’. It’s doubtful! Sob. I’ll never reach adulthood. Sob. Sob. I thought for certain I would be grown up by age 40. Didn’t happen. Then I thought, “50: That must be my magic number. Everyone I know who is 50 is sure enough grown up.” I missed again.

I’M NOT A big fan of defending print. I know, a strange way to start a column in a printing trade magazine. Clearly, the graphic arts industry is undergoing a time of dramatic change, and we speak a great deal about competition from alternative media and why print is still important in the media mix.

WHAT’S THE first thing a print buyer does when considering a new print supplier today? The answer, of course, is to Google them. Obviously, being listed on online search engines is directly related to the amount of traffic your Website generates.

IS THE PRINTER a one-stop-shop? Is work completed in a timely fashion? Does the sales rep keep his/her promises? Is the printing company financially sound? These are some of the questions that Gretchen Morris ponders as the director of Global Catalog Production—and print buyer—at Edmund Optics (EO) America.

The simple and long-standing concept of the four P’s of marketing still rings true today. Ultimately, marketing managers have the levers of price, product, place, and promotion to pull in order to increase sales. In recent years, consumer and technological developments have ratcheted up the level of complexity within each of the four P’s.

This complexity leads to organizational silos with conflicting strategies, options, and metrics. The framework provided in this paper is intended to help marketers optimize their process to quantitatively make the best decisions - not only within each of the four P’s, but also overall by modeling the interactions between the four marketing elements.

A perfect storm refers to the simultaneous occurrence of events which, taken individually, would be far less powerful than the resulting of their chance combination. In 2009 the combination of the economy, marketers driven by the delivery of marketing campaigns with clear ROI, a need to reduce print runs and improvements in total cost of ownership for digital print devices has developed into a "perfect storm" for digital printing.

This year, the savvy digital printer has a powerful value proposition for clients. Through effective use of digital technology, service providers can deliver ROI driven marketing campaigns with solid measurement metrics and they can provide zero-inventory printing services. Vendors are delivering on the promise of more affordable color.

This webinar is the first in a free, three-part series, and is designed to discuss how print service providers can affordably benefit from "the perfect storm" through wise investments in digital print and related software solutions.

Click here to view this webinar on-demand.

To learn more about the other webinars in the Thrive! in 2009 webinar series, click here.