Priming for Success in the Cross-Media Universe
By Lisa Cross, InfoTrends
This Feature Brought to You By OutputLinks’ European Media Partner, 4IT Group.
More media choices, multiple communication channels, and new technologies offer profitable opportunities for print service providers that can connect print, Web, video, e-mail, mobile messaging and online communities.
The cross-media buyer channel is primed for investment, as the current thinking on communication is that reaching out to constituencies is best achieved through orchestrated efforts that combine media alternatives.
Tuning into the profit frequency in today’s multi-media communication channel requires balancing basic client demands—price, quality, and service—with innovation. InfoTrends’ recently published study entitled Capturing the Cross-Media Direct Marketing Opportunity found that beyond the price/quality/service triad, multi-channel clients (advertisers and marketers) want to partner with firms that they know and trust. These firms should also have solid strategies and tools to feed content to multiple channels and measure results.
InfoTrends’ study defines cross-media marketing as the use of two or more media types (print, e-mail, Web, mobile, and/or social), targeting a specific segment, in an integrated campaign that delivers relevant content and a call to action through multiple media forms.
Opportunities are the Flipside of Challenges
A consistent thread among firms that are succeeding in offering cross-media communications is identifying customers’ challenges and converting them into viable opportunities. The top challenges identified in InfoTrends’ cross-media study, which surveyed advertising agencies and marketers, centered on defining a solid strategy to position, sell, integrate, and deliver cross-media services.
The task before marketers, publishers, and all purveyors of content is to effectively use multiple channels to get their messages delivered and acted upon. The opportunity for print service providers lies in developing products and practices that enhance value at multiple points across the channel.
The Value Proposition for Printers
As managers of clients’ graphic assets, print service providers are in a position to extract value, and companies of all sizes are launching new services that would have been considered suicidal to print in the early days of the online transformation. In the past six months, for example, big magazine printers like RR Donnelley, Quad/Graphics, and Fry Communications have announced offerings for mobile and tablet applications that could render obsolete the printed versions they produce. These applications offer rich media and expanded user functionality.
In July 2010, Fry launched a mobile magazine app called Mozine that offers the ability to publish once, then distribute and optimize content across all mobile and tablet platforms. Rather than replicating a printed magazine onto a handheld device, Mozine blends elements from print, online, video, blogs, and other assets owned by the publisher. The app also provides publishers/clients with three main revenue sources: subscriptions purchased by consumers, integrated storefront sales, and advertising within the app. The launch also offers clients a mobile business plan to support success, including pricing and promotional recommendations.
Commenting on its June 2010 launch of iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch apps for magazine, catalog, and retail customers, Quad/Graphics President and CEO Joel Quadracci stated, “Our new Quad/Graphics iPad App solution is all about creating value for our clients and helping them engage and connect with customers in new ways. It also generates revenue by enhancing print communications.”
These moves by print service providers are significant because they are playing out in firms of all sizes and across multiple market spaces.
RR Donnelley COO John Paloian said in a company statement, “Our workflows are designed to help publishers bring their editorial, advertising, and other communications to life in a variety of printed and virtual vehicles."
Paloian reports that RRD’s arsenal of more than 1,000 digital printing units combined with Web-enabled systems and mobile applications serves clients with a breadth of communications options.
A Four-Step Formula for Success
Combining the challenges identified in InfoTrends’cross-media research study, market trends, and print service provider success stories, yields a four-step formula for a succeeding in offering cross-media products.
1. Define the Universe
The cross-media market is still forming and full of confusion, which means that there is an opportunity to set the standard. Hype on this subject abounds, and firms that can define practical and effective methods for delivering results will gain the advantage. This holds true for serving clients and supporting internal operations—efficient processes power profits.
On the client side, the market needs direction—and proof—about practical strategies that can be used to combine media and deliver desired results. Taking a multi-channel approach to demonstrate, prove, and define your firm’s prowess in the field can yield significant results.
Budco (Highland Park, MI) designed a cross-media campaign to drive attendance to an event that would educate customers on its cross-media offerings. The goal was to communicate its end-to-end cross-media solution to customers, using print and online tools to invite clients to an educational event on Budco’s services. The program combined personalized printed postcards, personalized URLs, e-mail, and data captured in the process. During the enrollment process for the event, Budco asked prospects to choose their favorite Detroit sports team and their favorite rock & roll/back to school movie by selecting from a pre-defined list. This information was later used to personalize each attendee's program materials. The multi-channel invitation process yielded a 24% response rate.
Glenn Fontaine, VP of Client Services at Budco, was pleased with the results but says the next steps are "taking what we learned and applying it to solutions for our clients. Additionally, the post-event feedback from attendees was overwhelmingly positive, so we are confident that we achieved our objective of hosting a fun and informative seminar."
Turning to internal operations, this means educating all staff on the “what” and “how” of cross-media. Efficient processes require everyone in an organization, including the sales and technical staff, to speak the same language. Discrepancies in communication obstruct efficiency and hurt profits. In response to requests from print service providers, InfoTrends designed an e-learning curriculum concerning multi-channel communications. For more information, visit http://www.printing.org/elearning. (Enter promo code piamag5 to receive a 5% discount when ordering an e-learning training program or individual course.)
Printing firms must also develop a technology infrastructure to support multi-channel communications. Evaluating solutions to serve this market is a cumbersome task. To ease the process and solidify print’s role in the channel, InfoTrends developed an Ultimate Guide Online Buyers Guide for multi-channel communications software. It offers side-by-side comparisons of software solutions on key attributes, updated by analysts in real time. InfoTrends developed its Ultimate Guide Online series to help firms make educated buying decisions and reduce the research time involved with such an investment. Free and premium versions are available. For more information, visit http://ultimateguide.infotrends.com/pia/ug. (Enter promo code piamag5 to receive a 5% discount when ordering n Ultimate Guide Online Premium Membership.)
2. Shape the Universe
Clients need assistance in developing unified cross-media efforts that efficiently manage, unite, and leverage the media types selected. Media types must work together naturally to create a “whole” experience that delivers results to clients.
Reynolds DeWalt (New Bedford, MA) shaped its offering by studying and analyzing vertical markets to develop a cross-media offering for improving business results in a particular market segment. Targeting specific vertical markets enabled Reynolds DeWalt to tailor its cross-media offerings to deliver explicit value to clients.
“Developing ‘productized’ solutions gave us a high level of expertise in a specific vertical market niche,” says Scott Dubois, Vice President of Cross-Media Services and Marketing at Reynolds DeWalt. “Once we got the initial programs up and running, the technology could be leveraged across multiple firms in the segment.”
The financial services market was a key target for Reynolds DeWalt, and the company opted to develop a multi-channel product focused on increasing 401-K enrollments. The company “productized” a cross-media solution to boost plan enrollments and increase contributions. Using its clients’ prospect databases, Reynolds DeWalt targeted employees making minimal or no contributions to their 401-K plans with personalized communications across all media channels that explained the value loss resulting from their decision.
“Once we got the initial programs up and running, the technology was able to be leveraged across multiple 401-K providers,” says Dubois.
Reynolds DeWalt took a similar approach in developing a multi-channel product to drive sales in the automotive dealer channel.
Dubois says that a key technology shaper is identifying how the investment will deliver services that customers value. For Reynolds DeWalt, this meant “increased 401-K contributions for financial services businesses and increased sales for auto dealers. We developed our salespeople so that they could consistently articulate the differentiated value that we deliver.”
Dubois states that customers welcome the opportunity to purchase from a company that is familiar with their industry and needs. “Industry professionals also tend to listen to their peers, and a recommendation or endorsement can help increase a product’s popularity within a specific market or industry segment,” he adds.
3. Measure the Universe
Measuring results and demonstrating ROI is the new marketing mantra. Marketing is no longer an art, intuition, or gut feeling. R and R Images (Phoenix, Arizona) developed a multi-channel offering (including direct mail, e-mail, mobile and social campaign support) that includes a tracking component to determine and manage clients’ ROI. R and R brands its multi-channel offering as iDirect, and it also focuses in applying emerging technologies like Quick Response (QR) codes.
R and R’s Website promotes the firm’s ability to cut through message clutter and solve clients’ challenges through “creativity, innovation, urgency, and an understanding that your ROI is the ultimate benchmark of our success.”
DME (Dayton, Ohio) is a cross-media provider that describes itself to customers as a “trackaholic.” DME offers clients response rate measuring for each media element of each campaign. It gathers data (including surveys, Web visitation, e-mail replies, and customer satisfaction) to determine which media channels, messages, and offers were most successful and why. Customers can access easy-to-read reports through password-protected Websites.
4. Expand the Universe
It is important to spread the word to your clients, and their customers, about cross-media and your organization’s value in delivering it. You can build it, but clients won’t come if you don’t tell them about it. Follow the Budco example—host an event and promote it by demonstrating your skills in cross-media. Go to events that your customers attend and speak about your services, then use social media to move your cross-media message.
There are many promotional strategies to pursue… pick one and demonstrate through words and actions what you can do!
Conclusion
InfoTrends’ new cross-media study explores how businesses can address challenges to create opportunities. Companies like Budco, Reynolds DeWalt, R and R, and DME have developed successful cross-media campaigns by defining, shaping, measuring, and expanding their opportunities. Harnessing the cross-media opportunity demands understanding all of the various media types and learning to use them to your advantage.